The Company
by sgafan360
Summary: Combination of Chuck and Ryan Universes. Chuck is happily working for The Company when a certain blonde enters his life and turns his previously safe life into one filled with guns, bullets, and danger.
1. The Meeting

The Company

The first 2,403 words (minus some minor alterations made by me) after this were betaed by the awesome Verkisto, unfortunately due to some problems the rest of the chapter and fic are not. If anyone else is willing to beta I'd be ecstatic.

A/N- Sorry, Jill haters, but I'm not one of you, and since this is a pretty major AU, I took a much more Jillfriendly approach to Chuck and Jill's relationship. They broke up but salvaged a friendship in later years. She's actually taking a role similar to Morgan's. (He would be there, but I needed someone **smart**, hardworking, and not a moron.)

Sarah will be a bit different, this is an AU. Her childhood is now better, but worse. That'll make sense eventually.

This is a combination of Chuckverse and Ryanverse (Clancy) I moved everything in the book about a decade back. 9/11 didn't happen, per se. This will be taking place just after "Executive Orders." Below is a basic plot summary, you can read it if you want to although I'm not sure if it contains much that you need to know.

_"Executive Orders" Basic Plot Summary: At the conclusion of a brief war with Japan (started by Japan in reaction to a new law that allowed America to mimic their tariff practices), a Japanese pilot crashed his stolen commercial airliner into the Capitol building during a joint session of Congress (this was written pre-9/11), killing almost the entire government, leaving only Jack Ryan as President (he had been Vice-President for about 5 minutes at that point). Shortly after, Iraq was taken over by Iran (when Saddam was killed by an Iranian sleeper agent, a major difference than the real world, obviously). Iran then decided to launch an Ebola attack on America in an attempt to kidnap the president's daughter, kill Ryan, and take over the rest of the Middle East. Ryan has ordered martial law and banned interstate travel in order to deal with the Ebola outbreak and, in the process, managed to thwart another assassination attempt by American anarchists. Following this, he rescinded the executive order banning assassinations and spearheaded the military defeat of Iran that culminated in the assassination of their leader on live television._

_So I think you're caught up now. If you have any other questions about this wonderful Universe ( Tom Clancy is my favorite author.) just leave it in a review or shoot me a PM and I'll either address it in an update (if it's fairly serious, an anonymous review or just asked a lot) or I'll just send you a message explaining it to the best of my ability (it has been a few years since I read the books, and I'm going through them right now). _

I will be taking some liberties with Chuck's job. He is both an analyst and an OTS (Office of Technical Services CIA Q branch as per my understanding of it) computer engineer. I have no idea what it's like to work for the CIA, so to anyone who does, any mangling of it is completely unintentional.

Chapter 1- First Encounters

Chuck pushed out of his desk, spun around, and grabbed the cubicle wall that separated him from his female OTS colleague . "So what are you doing this weekend?" he asked ingenuously.

She answered as he pushed himself into her cubicle. "We're heading into the city."

"Doing what?" Chuck flashed a quick smile before sidling his chair next to her so he could see what she was doing.

"Me and Steve are going to look at wedding cakes. What about you?"

"I'm probably going to pull some overtime and write some new tasking programs for our satellites."

She looked at him incredulously, "Chuck, it's the weekend. Please go out and do something fun. Don't just sit around and work. You're young, sweet, and to be perfectly honest, and I would think the girls would think it's sexy to be dating James Bond."

He hated it when his ex talked about dating other people. He was over her, but it still made him uncomfortable. They had managed to forge a friendship when she'd joined the CIA and had been given the desk next to his. That had helped him get over her and they'd reestablished the close friendship they had had before they had started dating way back in college. "But I'm not a spy! And when they find that out that I'm an analyst and not some super-spy, they dump me." he grumbled.

"Chuck, you have a lot to offer a woman, and if they dump you just because you aren't some super spy, well, then they're not good enough for you."

He was about to say something when his phone started ringing. Chuck quickly spun out of her cubicle and back into his own . "Charles Bartowski…Now, sir?...Yes, sir." He gently replaced the phone in the holder and then turned back to Jill. "Shit, I have to go see Mary Pat."

"The DDO?" The Deputy Director of Operations was a legend for her cold war work in the agency. She'd been the handler of CARDINAL, the top double agent in the Russian government.

"One and the same."

"What does the deputy director want with you?" She was worried about him. Chuck certainly wasn't field operation material. Her greatest fears had always been that one day he'd be sent into the field for some sort of hacking job and never return.

"No idea. Hopefully, that wasn't her car I hit yesterday." He nervously hurried out the door and towards the elevator.

***

"Go right in, Mr. Bartowski," the secretary said the moment Chuck appeared in her outer office. Chuck continued forward, not even breaking his stride. Passing through the open door he was met by The Deputy Director of Operations, Mary Pat, and the "Co- Deputy Director of Operations" her husband Ed Foley.

"Ah, good. Mr. Bartowski, I was told that you're the man to see about computers."

"Uh, yeah, I guess, but don't you have an IT department to fix your computer?" Chuck asked uncertainly. While he was sure he could remove whatever virus or problem the Deputy Director had with her computer, he really didn't want to do that kind of work anymore. After all, Chuck was a Stanford graduate. Why would he be doing the job of someone who still worked as part of the Nerd Herd?

"No, my computer is fine; however, Agent Walker's hard drive needs fixing."

Mary Pat pointed to the blonde agent, who was trying to hide in the corner behind a plant but failing miserably. She looked nervous, shy, and he could see a few bruises on her arms and face. Chuck had heard of Agent Walker, a top CIA agent who was supposed to be on the fast track and following in the footsteps of Mary Pat herself. So why would she be nervous?

"As I'm sure you can imagine, the information isn't exactly for just anyone to see," Mary Pat continued.

"So you need me to fix her hard drive and forget I saw anything? No problem." At this point, Chuck would have agreed to build a new Cray from scratch if it meant he wouldn't get in trouble for the occasional off-the-books stuff he did or the amount of overtime he put in.

Agent Walker didn't want to speak; she didn't trust her voice, so she just gave him a weak nod. The rumors might have been that she was on track to follow Mary Pat or maybe even John Clark, whose Cold War operations were required learning at The Farm, where he also taught. But while that was quite an honor, she had heard the rumors about Charles Bartowski and among the upper echelons of the CIA, he was considered to be following in another analyst's footsteps: the analyst who currently occupied White House. Jack Ryan's exploits were legendary, and a few were expecting the analyst standing before her to follow in his footsteps.

He didn't know how to handle a gun and had nowhere near the good relations with Britain that President Ryan had—of course, how many opportunities were there to save members of the Royal Family?—but Chuck had a great mind for crunching intelligence, and some of the gadgets he had developed for the agency had saved more than a few agents from certain death, including Sarah herself. Because her missions often forced her to assume different cover Ids, she figured he didn't know how often he had sent her intelligence or made a gadget specifically for her missions, but she felt she owed him. It didn't hurt that she had found him slightly attractive in a geeky sort of way. Not that geeky was really Sarah's type, but if he was supposed to be like Ryan (which, if Sarah believed half of what Mary Pat had told her, was quite the honor) he wasn't merely a geek.

Considering her silence, stance, and attempt at hiding, Chuck assumed Agent Walker had some kind of problem with him and decided to try to appeal to her agent's ego. "Agent Walker, it's an honor to meet you. I've read through some of your mission files, and I must say, you are amazing" Chuck said sincerely.

Sarah blushed, and it took every ounce of strength she had to avoid responding in kind, but she didn't want to make even the remotest suggestion of impropriety in front of her mentor. Or perhaps it was a feeling of gratitude that compelled her, given the fact that, on her last mission, a gadget he'd developed to jam the detonation signal of enemy explosives and that he had also managed to somehow to fit into a rather attractive necklace had saved her life. Besides, she had promised to meet up with Bryce for dinner in a couple of hours, and if she started flirting with the geek, she knew that she'd be busy for the rest of the night thanking him, even if not in words, for that little necklace. It would be the least she could for the man, but as she looked at him, she realized that, unlike most men she encountered, he wasn't looking at her as though she were an object. The deep brown eyes that were fixed unerringly on Sarah's clear blue ones were not full of the usual glint of lust but with a concern that startled the agent with its intensity and caused her insides to heat up in a sudden very primal, very female response.

She swallowed and tried to restore some of her self-control. "Come on, I left it in my office." She didn't dare say anything more than that. Her voice sounded normal, to untrained ears, but to the practiced ears of the Directors her voice was higher than it should have been and belied far more than a hint of nervousness.

Sarah blushed when she grabbed his hand and pulled him along, why was she acting so juvenile? He didn't need his hand held, literally or figuratively. She considered, briefly, that she could be suffering from some kind of Florence Nightingale syndrome.

He followed her along leaving the husband and wife, CIA power couple, in her office alone. "Ed, tell me I didn't just see what I think I saw?"

He slipped behind her, "Did you just see your protégé act like a schoolgirl with a crush? Personally I liked her little hiding-behind-the-plant-so-he-won't-see-me-thing. It was quite adorable."

"That's what I was afraid of." The blonde Director groaned sadly.

He slipped behind her and placed a gentle hand on each of her shoulders. "Did you just see your protégé act like a schoolgirl with a crush? Personally, I liked her little hiding-behind-the-plant-so-he-won't-see-me-thing. It was quite adorable."

"That's what I was afraid of," the blonde director groaned sadly.

"Oh, come on, we managed to make it out alive."He squeezed his hands slightly, gently massaging her shoulders.

"Yeah, we did."

"Then what are you worried about?"

The deputy director laughed. "That maybe my favorite agent is going to get attached to that kid and get herself killed thinking about Bartowski on some mission or become heartbroken and careless. Sarah's good, she'll go places, if she keeps her head in the game. We kept our heads in the game."

Ed considered that for a moment before remembering the main reason he had been in the director's office when Walker had arrived. "I just had a new operation come across my desk, with a base in Switzerland. I can have Walker and Larkin on a flight leaving tonight. I assume that's soon enough?"

His wife and boss snorted slightly in derision. "We are talking about Sarah Walker here. If she's emotionally involved with the guy, you could move them in together and put them at the same desk for the next three years and she wouldn't make a move. That girl only moves if she's on a mission."

Ed was glad he was able to lift her spirits a bit, but business still remained. "What about Bartowski?"

She shook her head, "Don't know. He's not mine."

"I doubt he'll make a play for her tonight. He just doesn't seem the type. But I suppose it's possible she could want some human contact and decide that he'd be a convenient lay."

"She's partnered with Larkin. Something tells me that if she's just looking for casual sex, the tech geek isn't the first guy on her list."

***

As the blonde agent dragged her willing technician into the elevator she didn't fail to notice the look from the other woman in the elevator. The brunette quickly looked at her, then did a double take when she saw who Sarah was with. Initially Sarah had felt a little protective of her computer geek, the woman's gaze did seem a bit predatory after all, but she quickly suppressed the desire to hurt her. She was glad she did when the woman's gaze changed from predatory to friendly and approving. "You know Chuck when I said you needed to get out there and find a girlfriend I didn't mean you had to start dating the first girl you met."

Sarah and Chuck quickly exchanged a nervous look. Both concerned with what the other one was thinking. "We aren't dating," Sarah nervously and quickly explained. She needed to quickly get her emotions under control and figure out how to deal with whatever it was she felt for this man. She didn't realize how her immediate denial would look to the other two.

The brunette's gaze went right back to predatory and confrontational. Jill didn't even consider that she was dealing with a trained agent, "What why not? Chuck is a great guy, someone you'd be lucky to be with, and that's something you'd know if you spent ten minutes with him." Despite having broken up years prior, their relatively new friendship had made her protective of her first love. She no longer wanted to date or him, but she still wanted to look out for him and she knew he looked out for her to.

"Then why aren't you dating him?" Sarah's agent instincts had kicked in and she was ready for a conflict with the other woman.

"Well we did, but I'm currently engaged to someone else."

Chuck felt like he didn't exist, he was glad for that fact to, with the way the two women were looking at each other he didn't want to be involved.

"So you broke up with him?" Sarah smiled triumphantly at her victory. She'd learned that Chuck was single—something she had assumed from the beginning, but it was nice to have some confirmation—and she'd put the woman in her place.

Jill bit her lip, "We were drifting apart and he was moving out east and I didn't want to deal with a long distance relationship."

Sarah was tempted to continue playing with the scientist, but she realized that sometimes the scientists saved her life to and Chuck appeared to be friends with her. The elevator binged and the door slid open, "Come on Chuck time for you to fix my hard drive." She said trying to make it sound like innuendo while glaring at Jill. Unfortunately she said it with a little too much anger, and rather than sounding seductive, sounded just plain mad. Jill laughed as Chuck followed her out.

***

"And that should do it." Chuck exclaimed as he finished up and the computer screen popped to life.

Sarah jumped up from the chair she had been sitting in. She smiled as warmly as her twenty hour day would allow for. "Thanks," she leaned over behind him as he started running some basic programs. "Check the spreadsheets." He complied, quickly.

"Are you sure I should be looking at this?" He said as she pointed to the document she wanted him to open.

She hummed pleasantly in his ear. He probably would have been given the data to analyze on Monday, but technically he didn't have clearance for it yet. But data analysis was not Sarah's strong point and it couldn't hurt to have him take a look at it as well even if he technically wasn't cleared for it. As they began scanning the spreadsheet she unconsciously started running her fingers through his hair. "I think this is what you're looking for?"

As she scanned the numbers she wasn't seeing what he was talking about. "I don't think so." He highlighted a pair of columns labeled -239 and Sh-6, "What is that?"

"Well if I'm interpreting that right its plutonium-239. Some people use it to make bombs and this right here," he pointed to the column labeled Sh-6, "That's probably shorthand for the Iranian missile."

She smiled, "Well I see your reputation is well deserved, I wouldn't have caught that. Thanks Chuck I have to go report this." She quickly queued it up to print. She figured she'd drop it off while she headed up to see what Ed Foley had called her about a couple of minutes earlier.

He spun around sputtering, "Wait…Wait what reputation do _I_ have?"

She was surprised, how could he not know what his reputation was? "Are you an egomaniac or do you really not know?" She certainly worked far too long a day to deal with the former.

"I really don't know." She knew that he was being completely honest with her.

She looked at him, questioning him. "You're supposed to be the best and a few people think you'll be following in the Ryan's footsteps."

He laughed, "I don't think I'll be saving too many princes, but thanks for the compliment."

"I didn't create the rumor, but I will be telling people that it is very well deserved."She gave him a quick uncomfortable smile, the idea of leaving him alone in her seldom used office did not appeal to her. She didn't remember what was in there and Chuck discovering any personal details that might be there was not a welcome thought.

"Thank you Agent Walker, but it really wasn't all that difficult hell you probably could have called the nerd herd and they would have been able to do it." He stood up to leave and return to his desk where he had a pile of work waiting as always.

"Call me Sarah," she said as he walked out the door. She had considered asking him out, he had been nice to her, treated her with the utmost respect, she knew he was smart, and he was cute in the geeky sort of way. But at the same time she felt something holding her back, preventing her from pursuing what she wanted, what if he said no? She couldn't risk that. Besides, she rationalized to herself; she was an agent and frequently had to leave on missions that occasionally included seducing marks, that wouldn't be fair to him.

***

Ed Foley looked up from his papers when he heard the door open and close. "Agent Walker, did he take of your problem?"

"I already filed my report, is that why you wanted me?"

"We have a new mission for you." He handed her the file. "Switzerland, we want you to check out some interesting shipping."

Her shoulders slumped; she was tired and sore from the previous and had been looking forward to some time off or a mission in the sun. "Oh? I thought we'd be pursuing the intel we just got back? It seems rather important." She didn't really have much interest in going back to Switzerland. It was cold this time of year, and she already felt a little pale.

"No we're handing that off to another team."

"What time do we leave?" She hoped to at least have some time to recover from the injuries she'd sustained during the previous mission. Granted they were minor, but she never liked to _start _a mission with bruises.

A/N- Comments? Complaints? Issues? Reviews? Come on you know you want to tell me.


	2. The Sum of All Fears

Wow. I was absolutely floored by the response to the first chapter. Thanks guys you really made my day. So here's the next chapter.

Chapter 2- The Sum of all Fears

A/N- No, Denver is not going to get nuked.

"Sarah, hello Sarah, you okay?" Bryce said waving his hand in front of her face. He had been talking to her for a few minutes before he realized that she wasn't listening to him at all.

"What?" She spat.

"What's wrong with you? Normally you're pretty happy about going on a mission."

"Well normally the plane ride is better, we aren't stuck on such a boring mission, and I was looking forward to those days off." Ever since the turbulence they had encountered shortly after takeoff Sarah had, had a bad feeling.

"You were looking forward to time off?" A smile broke out across his face, "Who are you and what have you done with Agent Walker?" He said while pretending to reach for his gun.

She glared at him contemplating whether a violent or diplomatic solution would be better. She leaned up next to Bryce, her lips inches from his ear. "Now I'm going to go to the bathroom and when I come back you had better leave me alone." She said with a fake smile and a very, very dangerous tone.

"Sounds like someone needs to get laid." He grumbled as she left.

Unfortunately for him he didn't say it quietly enough and she whipped back around on him, "If I did need to get laid you would not be the one I was calling." Sarah made sure to very visibly finger her knives.

Bryce smiled, he knew he had her. She was very protective of her private life, what little of one she had, and he generally liked to push her on it. "So who would you be calling?"

The knife was out of its holster and imbedded in the seat between Bryce's legs before he could finish his ribbing. "One more word out of you and you won't _ever _satisfy another woman."

He knew when he was beat and with his usual arrogant demeanor retrieved a magazine and quickly began thumbing through it. Sarah stalked off disappointed that Larkin hadn't given her a reason to make him a eunuch.

When she re-emerged he ignored her and she simply moved off towards the back of the plane, far away from him.

***

**Heathrow**

Bryce sneaked a look at his partner, who had not moved since their fight, Sarah appeared to have calmed considerably. He figured part of that had to do with the fact that they were safely on the ground. Tossing his magazine on the seat next to him he got up and cautiously approached her, his hands positioned strategically in front of his genitals. "Sarah?"

She looked up from her book. She wasn't happy with him, but had sufficiently cooled off to not eviscerate him immediately. "Look Sarah I'm sorry I was pushing your buttons earlier. I know bumpy flights make you nervous, but I'm here if you need me."

She just looked at him strangely, unsure of what game he was playing at.

"Look I just need to know if you're going to have your head in the game. I'm going to go out on a dangerous limb here and say that there was someone you were looking forward to meeting back home and if you need to talk about that well I'm your partner." He wasn't the most emotional guy, but he had pretended to listen to enough girls talk about their feelings to get pretty could at pretending to listen and if it would help his partner even better.

She nodded not saying a word.

"Sarah do you want to talk about it?" Bryce said in a patronizing tone.

Danger returned to Agent Walker's eyes with a vengeance, "Do not speak to me like I'm someone who needs to be handled."

"Sorry, Walker, but I need you on top of your game and if talking about whomever the hell it is that's got you all hot and bothered helps with getting you back on the game then you better damn well do it."

Sarah continued staring at him, although the look of pure malevolence had lessened. "I'll be fine, besides this op should be easy we're stealing financial documents not Russian nuclear secrets."

"It's the Swiss, Russian nuclear secrets would probably be easier to steal."

Sarah gave a forced, awkward laugh glad for an excuse to try and break the tension. Bryce sensed that she was forgiving him, "We're moving now, wanna come back up?"

"I'll be fine here." Sarah had more or less forgiven him, but that didn't mean she wanted to set next to him for the rest of the flight. "I'm sorry about earlier, you know I can get uncomfortable on flights."

"Don't worry Sarah."

***

**Monday Morning**

Dr. Jill Roberts walked into her cubicle bright eyed and bushy tailed, until she heard a snore emanating from her friend's cubicle. She immediately cringed, "Oh, Chuck." As she walked over to shake him awake she remembered the last time he had woken her up. She smiled and headed back to her work station to retrieve an ice cold bottle of water. Returning to her sleeping co-worker she unscrewed the cover of the bottle and tilted it, pouring ice cold water into his messy, animal shape making hair.

He sprang up a second later in total disarray. When he heard her laughter and found the scientist standing next to him with a smug smile lighting up her face he realized what had happened. "What was that for?"

"Last month when I fell asleep here trying to meet that deadline."

"I didn't pour freezing water on your head!"

"You screamed with a blow horn in my ear." Her smile left her face as he slumped back into his chair rubbing his face.

"Chuck, please don't tell me you spend your entire weekend here?"

"I didn't spend the entire weekend here." He repeated.

"Ellie or Morgan?"

"Ellie and Captain Awesome are in the Bahamas."

"Chuck there is more to life than work and video games." They'd gone down this road far too often in the past.

"Sometimes I could swear you and Ellie are conspiring against me." He said as he rubbing his eyes and preparing for another long day at work.

"We're not conspiring against you, Chuck, we're conspiring _for _you."

"Uh-huh, now can I get to work? I've gotta write a new program for—wait never mind."

She smiled at him, "Finally starting to get a hang of that classified thing." She leaned against the wall smiling. "So, who was the girl you were with on Friday?"

"Agent Sarah Walker." He said with a little smirk of his own.

Jill nodded a sly smile gracing her lips, "So you didn't just work here did you?"

"What?"

"Chuck that woman was obviously attracted to you and you were going to lock yourselves in her office for how many hours? Are you seriously telling me that you two didn't do anything? You could have at least made plans to meet up for coffee afterwards!" Jill was now towering over Chuck's seated form.

"Look it just wasn't in the cards, besides she's already gone on some assignment so it wouldn't have been anything." He answered defensively. Before leaving Ellie had been stepping up on him to get over Jill and find a girlfriend.

Jill nodded, "Can you talk about the DDO?"

He comically narrowed his eyes, "Why do I feel like I'm being interrogated?"

"Probably, because I called Ellie reported in and got my interrogation orders."

"Uh-oh, what else did she want?"

"Nothing, but you should know she told me that waterboarding would be allowed if you didn't tell me." Her smile was infectious and they shared a laugh.

"Seriously, Chuck, what'd the DDO want?"

"For me to fix Sarah's hard-drive."

Jill took a moment to process it. She nodded, smiling that her greatest fear—that Chuck would be sent into the field—hadn't been realized. She sighed in relief and slipped back into her cube, already planning out her email to Ellie.

***

**3 Months Later**

Mary Pat's voice was harsh. Walker may have been her favorite, but that meant that Walker was held to a higher standard, a much higher standard. "Agent Walker I want you back at Langley by tomorrow morning."

"What about me director?" Bryce asked, risking the wrath of DDO. Sarah could have kissed him for the momentary distraction, but she knew that would have given him far too many ideas.

MP's voice lost none of its edge, "You are going to continue monitoring the three institutions you have under surveillance. We have a Learjet waiting for you Walker, NOW!" She yelled slamming her finger down on the keyboard cutting the feed.

"Good luck." Bryce offered as he happily retreated back to the surveillance gear in the back of the room. He knew he had the luckier of the two assignments, he had to sit and watch surveillance video while she got to head back to Langley and get her ass chewed out.

"I hate you."

"Love you to Mrs. Anderson." She rolled her eyes at the cover. Normally it wasn't bad, like this time, but sometimes his advances were annoying to say the least. Sarah didn't waste any time and a few minutes later she was on her way to the airport.

***

After hanging up with her team in Switzerland Director Foley hit her intercom, "James I want you to get Mr. Bartowski up here."

"Yes ma'am, anyone else?"

"No that'll be all." She said relaxing back into her chair. She closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment to relax as her fingers began massaging her temples. She missed field work, hell she missed the cold war. The days of sneaking around Moscow balancing CARDINAL dead drops and her sons Transformers videos seemed so much more attractive then assigning others to do the work.

When the door opened a moment later she sat up ready to reprimand Bartowski for entering without knocking. When she saw who it was, she was glad she had looked before speaking. "Mr. President I wasn't expecting you." She shot up out of her chair.

"Relax MP it's an unofficial visit." He sat down in the chair across from her, "I had a meeting with Graham. So how's Project Blue going?"

The plan to get the CIA back into the human intelligence game had been the brain child of her and John Clark and fortunately President Ryan had approved it and delivered the funding. "Actually I have one of my agents returning right now."

"Problem?"

"Computer security system, I have an OST technician coming up here now and he'll go back with Walker to hack into the system."

"Who?"

"Charles Bartowski."

Jack smiled, "The next me? Good, get him some field experience."

Foley was shocked that Ryan was aware of the rumors, but he was a top CIA analyst so it shouldn't have been all that surprising. "Yes, want to meet him?"

POTUS turned to his secret service agent, "Andrea do I have time?"

"No, we're due back shortly."

"Well I'm sure I'll meet him eventually."

"Goodbye, Mr. President."

"We have a briefing scheduled for the end of the week, I'd like a list of the top five agents you could stand to lose." He said walking out of her office. As his detail opened the door a tall lanky man stepped through. Chuck looked confusedly at the agents both inside and outside the Director's office doorway.

"Uh, who are—" Chuck froze when he saw the reason for the USSS agents; Chuck had no idea how to react to the president. He swallowed nervously, but didn't say anything or move.

"Charles Bartowski?"

"Uh—Yeah that's me. It's an honor to meet you, sir—Mr. President."

Ryan cast a quick glance over his shoulder to Andrea a smile on his lips. "So you're the one walking in my footsteps." He apprised the analyst quickly before offering his hand. "Goodbye, Mr. Bartowski."

Chuck babbled an incoherent response, before regaining some modicum of self-composure. "It was an honor, President Ryan, goodbye."

The awestruck CIA employee proceeded into the DDO's office.

"Mr. Bartowski, please have a seat." This time the Deputy Director was alone, but that didn't make her any less intimidating. When Chuck had taken a seat in front of her desk she slid a file over to him. "Open it, that's your next assignment."

"My next what? I'm an analyst, not a spy." He hoped he seemed calm, because in reality he was shaking in his boots. He did not sign up to be sent into danger, he didn't even know how to fire a gun!

Mary Pat ignored him, "How are your computer infiltration skills?"

"I can hack a computer from here." Chuck pushed the file back towards her.

"These don't have remote access; you're going to have to go onsite and hack into them from there." She said pushing the file back at him.

"What? I'm not trained! How am I supposed to sneak into some building in—"he looked at the file for the mission location. "In Switzerland and hack into one of their computers?"

The former spy laughed. "I imagine that if you were supposed to infiltrate these buildings you would be dead within five minutes. I have two agents to escort you in and out."

"Are you sure I can't just tell them how to do it? I could sit in the safe house, or a van, or I could stay here."

"You'll be fine, they'll keep you alive." Mary Pat smiled she knew she had him. "Study that file and be back here in twelve hours."

Chuck wanted to complain about the ungodly hour he was due back at, but considering the person ordering him back could get him sent out into the field more thought better of it. "Yes ma'am."

"Hold your questions until then." She looked back down at the paperwork and he took that as his queue to leave.

***

**Twelve Hours Later**

Chuck opened the door to Director Foley's office. Neither of the two blondes inside reacted to the door opening, until he was behind the seat. "Nice of you to join us Mr. Bartowski."

At the words Mr. Bartowski the blonde with her back to Chuck spun around. Seeing who it was Walker's eyes went wide with a mixture of emotions Chuck couldn't decipher. After a moment Sarah remembered where she was and removed any trace of emotion from her face. Like a child with her hand caught in the cookie jar she turned back around to face her boss.

"Take a seat Mr. Bartowski."

Sarah avoided looking at him. So far she hadn't felt anything apart from shock, but she didn't want to tempt fate.

Mary Pat noticed the strange behavior between the two, "Do you two know each other?"

They nodded in assent.

The director racked her brain for a minute and then remembered that the pair had met in her office months earlier. She remembered their interactions and Walker's actions made sense.

Sarah was still refusing to look at Charles. "Agent Walker, you are to escort Bartowski to Geneva, protect him while you infiltrate the targets, and guard him while he accesses the information you require; furthermore you are responsible for his personal protection, do not let him out of your sight. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." Sarah knew that meant round the clock protection. She was being ordered to sleep with him and of all the aspects of being a spy that was her least favorite; she hated the feeling she got in the morning after such missions. However, this was different; the idea of sleeping with Charles brought a blush to her cheeks and sent her temperature into the stratosphere. The idea of sleeping with him didn't make her feel dirty, but excited. The one problem she had with the orders was that she did not want to start a sexual relationship with him because of orders; if they became intimate Sarah wanted it to be because both of them wanted it, not because they had to.

Despite the emotional problems brought up by that order there was still another more pressing problem. "Director, won't that conflict with my cover?"

MP smiled, "Looks like you'll be having an affair Mrs. Anderson."

That got Chuck's attention, "Wait your ordering us to sleep together? I'm not having sex with her just for some cover—I'm sure she's great, but I'm sorry I have principles and I just won't; I'm sorry, but you'll have to find someone else."

Sarah physically recoiled away from him; she was hurt by his statement. The movement went unnoticed by Chuck, who was wrapped up with his own problems, but Sarah's mentor caught it and gave Sarah a quick smile before turning to the frazzled analyst, "Relax Charles I literally mean sleep there's no need for you two to actually follow through with the cover." That calmed him down, but the blonde mother wasn't done yet. "Unless you two want to."

Sarah snuck a quick peek at her new "lover" and saw that he was beet red; that gave her a small measure of comfort.

"Any questions?"

They shook their heads.

"You leave at four PM. I suggest you go home and sleep."

Sarah groaned she hadn't planned on spending the night and now how an additional problem, "Ma'am my lease ran out last month."

Mary Pat laughed, "Mr. Bartowski would you mind spending an extra night with Agent Walker?"

"Uh—No ma'am."

"Are you sure? I could go to a hotel, that's what I had been planning to do for my normal leave."

"I have an extra bedroom and really it's no problem." Chuck said with his usual genuine smile.

"Have a goodnight kids and try and try to get _some_ sleep." The director called with a smile as they left her office.

***

"So why don't you have an apartment?" Chuck said as he searched his keychain for the right one.

"I'm here for what? A couple weeks a year didn't seem necessary."

He found the right key and opened the door. "So what do you do for those weeks?"

"I was going to rent a hotel room." She said sadly.

Chuck nodded and pointed Sarah to her bedroom. "Ummm." She said biting her lip.

"What's up?"

"Do you have anything I could uh sleep in? I wasn't planning on spending the night."

Chuck nodded and headed to his bedroom to retrieve something for her to wear for the night. When he returned with a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt she smiled. "Thanks."

"When you're done give me your clothes I'll head down and wash them."

She gave him a smile and retreated to her temporary bedroom. After he disappeared to take care of her clothes she slipped into bed and buried her nose in his shirt. She had wondered what he had smelled like and while she couldn't put a name on it, their were quite a few smells that had mixed together, she knew she liked it.

***

Chuck was violently returned to the land of the wake by screaming coming from his spare bedroom. He bolted out of bed and sprinted to the source. By the time he arrived it had stopped, but the source was unmistakable: Sarah lay there wiping tears from her face with a look of absolute desolation on her face.

"Sarah?" He asked advancing on her cautiously.

Her reaction was immediate and violent: a knife was lodged in the door frame centimeters from his kneecap. While the action was violent her voice was not; in fact her voice contained no malice or ill will, but desperation and vulnerability. "Get out, now," she implored.

Looking at her, Chuck knew that he couldn't just not do anything "Hey Sarah, I hope this isn't too much of an imposition, but do you think we could uh practice for the cover?"

"Uh—What?" She asked, shocked by his request. Here he was looking at her at her most vulnerable and he wanted to ask about their cover? Then she realized that he was trying to help her while making sure they both saved face.

"Well if we have to go through with this cover I don't want to mess it up when it matters."

The shop talk allowed her professional face mask returned, "Yeah, good idea."

Chuck headed back into his room and collapsed onto the bed. A few minutes later Sarah followed him back in and climbed in next to him. She spooned up against him, "Uh Sarah? What are you doing?"

"If someone has surveillance in the room they need to see us acting like a couple. Hold me." She instructed and when he complied she relaxed back into him with a contented sigh. She had a number of different nightmares, but that one was always the worst. It had plagued her for years and she just wanted someone to hold her and remind her she was alive and safe.

***

"Wow, so is this how the CIA always send us around the world?" Chuck commented as they boarded the Learjet.

"Not always this nice, but being a spy has some perks." She said pouring herself a glass of scotch.

Chuck gave her a disapproving look, "Don't like flying?"

"No." She answered quickly after downing her drink in one gulp. That was all she had intended to say on the matter until she saw the look on his face. She could tell he was going to take full advantage of their long flight together to interrogate her on the previous night. She decided that volunteering a small amount of information would be better then dealing with a slow painful interrogation, "My parents were killed in a plane crash. I get nervous about flying. That's what last night was." She said it with practiced stoicism.

"Are you okay? Is there anything I can do for you?" he was on his knee holding her hand in supportive gesture before she even had time to considering what she had said.

"Never talk about it again."

He nodded and moved from his position on the floor to the seat next to her.

"My dad ran out on me and my sister when we were younger and our mom—" he stopped, a lump forming in his throat. "She was already gone." He managed to choke out as she handed him a drink.

They lapsed into an awkward silence. Sarah was already planning on hunting down and finding Charles's father, while Chuck was hoping to find some way to distract her during the flight.

***

**Someplace over the Atlantic**

"This your first mission?" Sarah asked Charles after deciding that sleep wasn't going to be kind enough to visit her that morning.

"Yeah, where was your first one?"

"Moscow, but I can't say anymore." She knew that in reality she shouldn't have told him that she'd ever worked in Moscow, but she wanted him to like her.

"Oh that was your first mission? Where you stole that intel on their fuel interests in Eastern Europe?"

"What! How do you know my mission?" Heads were going to roll back at Langley if he didn't have the correct response.

"I got the security plans of the plant and their offices for you, and I was part of the team that established you cover ID; I usually help out with the online part of those."

"Did you help build my ID in Morocco?" She questioned with a dangerous glint in her eye.

"No, you were in Morocco?"

"Good." Sarah had absolutely hated that cover ID.

"It wasn't a good cover ID?"

"Nope." That was the one cover ID that had almost gotten her to quit. It wasn't even necessary for the mission, but someone at Langley had decided she'd use it.

"Sorry, wish I could have helped."

"I'm sure you had more important things to do, like going out with your girlfriend?" Sarah realized the question was rather stupid, she hadn't told him when she was in Morocco so there was no way he could actually know what he was doing when she was there.

To her surprise he laughed, "No I haven't really dated anyone since college."

A million thoughts ran through her head, "Really? I find that hard to believe."

He laughed at her again! "Yeah, well we're not all spectacularly sexy super spies."

They both blushed at the compliment, "So you _do _think I'm attractive. I was beginning to think you might be gay."

"What! Why?" It wasn't that he was a homophobe; he just didn't want rumors spreading about him.

"Well we spent the night in the same bed and you didn't try anything."

"I didn't think you'd appreciate that." He admitted quietly.

Sarah felt a flash of desire course through her entire body. That just confirmed what she had already suspected, Charles was the kind of man that her dad would have wanted her to end up with; The kind of guy who would respect her and not simply treat her like a piece of meat. Sarah's thoughts drifted to the mission, it should be pretty simple and then she could ask the Director for permission to take Charles on a trip to the Alps to help him calm down from the mission. Of course she hoped that all of him wouldn't be down. "Charles there is one thing you should know about the mission."

Chuck felt his stomach drop, "What?" His voice was filled with dread.

"My partner, he uh likes to flirt with me."

Chuck was confused by her sudden confession, why should he care about her and her partner? "Ok, so is that going to be a problem for our cover?"

"Our cover? No."

"Then why does it matter?"

Sarah was flustered, was he really not sensing the other thing? Was she just imagining the whole thing? "Uh, I just didn't want you to think that we were you know…"

The puzzled look he gave her told that he did not know.

"That we were more than professional partners."

"Oh, thanks." He gave her a small smile.

Sarah didn't like how he didn't seem to care about the situation at all, but she hoped that he was simply nervous about the upcoming mission. "Do you know how to Ski?"

"No, why?" Chuck had been caught off guard by the seemingly random question.

Sarah smiled, she looked forward to teaching him how to ski. She planned to be a very hands-on teacher, "Well Charles, I thought maybe we could go skiing when the mission's over. I'll teach you, I can be a very good teacher."

"Oh Sarah?"

"Yeah?"

"Call me Chuck."

Sarah's heart rate spiked, her temperature shot up faster than the space shuttle, and she felt desire course through every vein in her body. It took every ounce of her self-restraint and training to keep herself from jumping him right then and there and for the first time in her life she almost wished she hadn't undergone the training that allowed her to resist that temptation.

***

As Jill walked into work and headed to her desk the next day she realized that Chuck was missing. "Finally." She said out loud to no one. Jill was quite happy that he had gone out and met someone the previous night. It would take her several hours to realize that he wasn't satisfying that desire, but instead her greatest fear. Chuck had gone out on a mission.

A/N- I 3 Reviews.

Well I don't think the next chapter will be up as soon as this one, I'll do my best.


	3. The Old College Roomate

9/11/09 Sorry I haven't gotten to update in a bit, but I was swamped with work. I'll be in Austria for the next week so I won't be able to write or about sorry. I'll try and update as soon as I can upon my return.

Once again, wow I was floored by the response. I'm sorry to those you whose reviews I did not reply to, but I thought you might appreciate a new chapter more.

Chapter 3- The Hotel

Sarah's eyes were wild with fear as she hovered over him, "Chuck! Oh god, are you in a lot of pain? SOMEONE GET A DOCTOR." He groaned in pain as he tried to roll over, "Chuck, don't move, hopefully paramedics will be here soon."

***

**One Week Prior**

Sarah held the steering wheel of her Porsche in a fierce grip. The flight hadn't been too bad, but the landing had been absolutely horrible. "Hey, it's ok we're safe." Chuck said in his most soothing tone of voice.

Sarah didn't respond.

"You have a partner right?"

"Bryce Anderson." She said with slight annoyance.

"Problems?"

Sarah pulled into the hotel and prepared to relinquish control of the car to the valet, but before that she turned to her passenger. "Bryce likes to flirt with me and I'd rather he didn't."

Chuck looked downcast reviewing his actions and trying to figure out if any of them could have been construed as flirting. "I'm sorry if I annoyed you with any flirting." He decided an apology wouldn't hurt.

Sarah almost laughed at the notion of her being offended by Chuck flirting with her. She would have been thrilled if Chuck had spent half as much energy flirting with her as Bryce did. "No, no—I don't mind you flirting with me." When she realized what she'd just said she blushed furiously before continuing, "I work with Bryce so it would be unprofessional to have a relationship with him and well I don't think my father would have approved of him." Sarah blushed even further when she realized that she'd just basically told him that her dead father's opinion still mattered to her. She tried to avoid talking about her family with co-workers and she just kept breaking that rule with him.

Sarah finally opened the door and relinquished hey keys to the valet. Turning to Chuck with far too much glee in her eyes, "Ready lover?" She asked in her most sultry voice.

The valet shot Chuck a look that said "You lucky son of a bitch."

Chuck swallowed nervously.

He followed Sarah inside the hotel where she retrieved their room key and headed to the elevator. As soon as the elevator door closed, leaving them alone, Sarah spoke into her wrist microphone. "Bryce meet us in my room."

Her wrist fell back to her side as they glanced at each other uncomfortably. She realized that as per their cover they should probably act like a young couple in the heat of passion; the problem was she wasn't sure how much of a cover it would be once she felt his lips on hers. She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat, "Chuck?"

"Yeah."

"We're going to have—to sell the uh—the cover."

"H—" He was cut off as she, literally, threw herself at him. It took him a fraction of a second to respond to the kiss, but in that microsecond Sarah was worried that he'd reject her—a silly notion considering the kiss wasn't romantic, but practical and virtually something she'd ordered—the idea of his rejection was not a welcome one, she realized that she wasn't acting like herself. Whenever she acted forward towards a mark she never worried about whether or not they'd respond or reject her, in truth she would have preferred the latter, but with him she was worried that he wouldn't return the kiss. Fortunately he returned the kiss and all her fears disappeared as her world was reduced to the feel of his lips on hers, his hand on the back of her neck, and every other point where their bodies met from their feet to her breasts brushing against his chest to his hand in her hair.

The elevator dinged, but that didn't register with Sarah whose world had been reduced to the space between her and Chuck. Then she felt him pushing her away from him, "Sarah—Sarah, don't we need to uh."

With the loss of contact between the two Sarah immediately reverted back to the cold agent. "Yeah, our room is at the end of the hall." She grabbed his hand and pulled him along behind him, just for the cover of course.

When she finally got to the end of the hall and their room she quickly slid the key card in and opened the room. As she entered with her "lover" she caught her "husband" sitting on the bed.

When Chuck walked around her and saw the other the man in the room he stopped. "BRYCE LARKIN!" Sarah did a double take between the two. They obviously had some kind of history and she held her breath as she waited to hear whether it was good or bad, "Its been awhile, what's up?"

"Chuck Bartowski? You are the last person I was expecting to walk through that door. What have you been up to?" They both managed to say at the same time. They stopped for a moment each waiting for the other to go ahead. When neither did they both attempted to speak, but after a few false starts they finally agreed for Chuck to speak first. "The CIA recruited me after I graduated; they liked some of my computer work. You?"

"I've been a Company man since my sophomore year at Stanford. It's good to see you Chuck." Bryce noticed the weird look on Sarah's face. She looked a bit lost and was casually observing Chuck.

"So you two know each other?" She asked as the two friends awkwardly embraced.

"Yeah, we were roommates in college." He explained casually before turning back to his old friend, "Have you seen Jill? Any idea what she's up to?"

"Yeah she actually works for The Agency to, do they recruit everyone from Stanford? She's actually engaged."

"I'm sorry it didn't work out between you two, I know how much you guys loved each other." As he said loved he saw his partners face momentarily drop its emotionless mask and was replaced by a mix of shock, disgust, jealousy, and some anxiousness. Could Chuck, harmless old computer nerd Chuck, possibly be the one Sarah Walker had been annoyed about on the plane? "So you two just met?"

Sarah flashed him a smile, "Actually we did meet before he had to help me recover some data from a hard-drive." She wanted to show that they hadn't just met and had some kind of history.

Bryce smiled; he finally had an opportunity to pay her pay back for the knife move on the plane all those months ago, "So was he the one you were going to call…" He didn't finish it hoping she would remember the conversation, but the confused expression on her face told him she wasn't remembering it. "You know in case you needed to get l—"

"Bryce!" She cut him off sharply. "Let. That. Go." She ground out. "We have a mission to attend to."

"Ok your right. Chuck we go in at night. One of us will lead the way and take out the guards while the other will hang back and guard you. We head up to the eighth floor, break into the server room, you hack in, get in information, we get out. Easy enough? See that took all of ten seconds." He proceeded with the briefing as fast as possible, he had been for god knows how many hours straight with surveillance video and wanted to sleep.

Sarah rolled her eyes, typical Bryce. "Chuck which one of us would you be more comfortable with?"

"What do you mean? And what do you mean by take out the guards? Are you going to kill them?"

"No, we won't be killing anyone. We'll use tranq guns to neutralize the security guards, not that they're much of a threat anyway. But we want you to be comfortable when you go into the field so you'll get to choose whichever one of us you want to be tasked with staying near you."

"Oh that's up to you guys I don't really care." She was rather surprised that he didn't want his friend protecting him rather than the CIA agent he'd heard having a nightmare the previous night.

They both knew how it would end up, Bryce preferred the action a lot more than Sarah did. He shot her his best puppy dog eyes, "Bryce will go ahead and I'll keep you safe Chuck."

"Ok so that settles that. Sarah this is what you got me down here for? This briefing could have been handled in thirty seconds over the phone. Chuck it's great to see you again, but I was on surveillance duty all night and I'm going to catch some shut-eye." Bryce headed back to his room leaving the pair alone in the five-star hotel room.

"Chuck your job is just to hack into their computers; I'll make sure your safe." They sat there awkwardly for a few moments unsure of what to do. "Why don't you go get unpacked? I have a few things I have to clear up with Bryce, but then I'll be back."

"Nothing you need me to do?"

"Study the floor plans and security systems. I'll be back soon, don't go to bed without me." That finally caused Chuck's head to shoot up.

"What!?" She smiled; she had finally gotten some kind of reaction out of him. He was either the most oblivious man she had ever encountered or he wasn't interested in her. She assumed it had to be the former, years of experience told her the latter was a virtual impossibility.

"I don't want to go to bed alone." She gave him a sly smile. "Stay up and wait for me?"

His throat was to dry to speak, so he settled for awkwardly shaking his head up and down.

As Sarah turned away from the room and towards the door she let the smile break out across her face. She wasn't planning anything for anything to happen during the mission—she did not need to be thinking about how good he was in bed when she was supposed to be protecting him—but after the mission all bets are off.

***

**Bryce and Sarah Anderson's Hotel Room. **

"I didn't expect to see you up here." He remarked as she entered.

"What the hell was that in there! He needs to trust my professional judgment and you nearly destroyed any chance I had to get him to respect my abilities as an agent!" She barely kept her anger under control. His little comment about him being the one who she would call, while correct, was way over the line.

"Don't bullshit me Walker, I'm your partner. I know that the reason you're pissed has absolutely nothing to do with professionalism or making sure that your asset trusts you. He's the one the isn't he? Dammit Sarah! You had to choose Chuck didn't you? Why the hell couldn't you choose anyone, and I mean absolutely anyone else. He's a good person Sarah; if I knew he was being courted by the CIA I would have done everything in my power to prevent that from happening."

She glared at him. She would have loved to have worked this out with her fists and feet, but the bruises would be horrible for the cover. "Where the hell do you get off? You don't care about his well being, you're just jealous that I happen to like him and I turned you down."

"Chuck is my friend. He was the best god dam friend I ever had and I'm going to look out for him. He deserves someone better than agents like us, he's better than us. So yes I'm jealous of Chuck. I'm jealous that he's a good, honest person, who doesn't kill people for a living, I'm not jealous that you've got a thing for Chuck."

"So you disapproving of our relationship has nothing to do with the fact that you've been trying to get me into that bed for the past year?" She pointed to the bed that lay exposed through the open bedroom doors.

Bryce returned to his calm and cool demeanor, "Have you slept with him?" he tone was utterly professional. In addition to worrying about Chuck's well being, he now had to make sure she wasn't in a relationship with him.

"Literally? Yes, but no." She was proud of herself for keeping any emotion out of her voice.

A small smile started spreading across Bryce's face. "Kissed him?"

"No, what are—"

The smile got larger. "Went out on a date?"

"No—"

"Then what relationship do you two have?" He smirked as he realized that his Chuck had probably managed to ward of her advances.

"We can't be unprofessional while we're on the mission," she got a mischievous glint in her eyes, "But the moment the mission is over there's nothing but a few layers of clothing separating me from him and we both know how quickly clothes can get removed."

Bryce didn't know if she was referring to his conquests or the incident early on in their partnership.

***

"_I thought you were dead." She whispered when his mouth final left hers. _

"_I came back." He said as his lips moved down her throat, his hands already hastily unbuttoning Sarah's blouse. _

"_You should be dead." She said as her blouse fell to the floor. She wasted no time in getting him in a similar shirtless state._

"_I'm not."Bryce took a break and moved her hand to his chest. "See feel." She paused for a moment and felt his heart beating under her hand. They stayed liked that, her hand over his heart, for a few minutes just reveling in another mission that they managed to survive. _

_Eventually she dropped her hand from his chest and realized what they were doing. "I—uh, this was a mistake." _

***

"Yeah Sarah. I find you attractive and I wouldn't mind finishing what we started all those night ago, but us" he gestured between the two, "we're never going to have a real relationship. Friends with benefits maybe, but we're not going to fall in love and get married." He paused for a moment and prepared himself to swallow the proverbial bullet, "If you're going to go forward with this, don't hurt him."

She smiled, "I guess the handcuffs and blunt force trauma are out then."

"Hey I told you not to watch the surveillance feeds, and I happened to be willing to go any distance for my country." Sarah shook her head as she walked out the door and headed back to her room with Chuck.

***

She walked in and was shocked to find him sitting on the couch without a shirt. He didn't notice her entrance so she took a moment to simply gaze at him, "Chuck, what do you think about going skiing in the Alps when this mission is over? I'd be more than happy to teach you."

When he stood up Sarah noticed that he had changed into pajamas. "Sure Sarah, just promise me you won't make fun of me when I make a fool out of myself."

"I'd never make fun of you, Chuck. Thanks for staying up, I'll join you in," she swallowed a lump in her throat, "there in a minute."

A/N- That last one was I heart reviews, but the symbol doesn't come through. Hope you guys enjoyed and please leave a review. They make me write more.

Yes Bryce isn't an evil scumbag, just someone who's attracted to Sarah.


	4. The Op

**Chapter 4- The Op**

**A/N- Sorry it took so long to update, in the event you didn't read the previous update I've been out of the country and couldn't bring my laptop. **

Bryce stopped the van a block away from their target, normally he would have stopped further away, but looking at his two partners he wasn't sure that the new one would be able to make it. They both looked dead tired, but Bryce knew Sarah she could deal a little sleep deprivation. Chuck not so much. When he had first seen their state earlier that day he'd silently shook his head, he'd hoped that Sarah would have waited until after the mission to make a move on Chuck, but that didn't look like the case here.

Bryce was right in the fact that neither Chuck nor Sarah had managed to get much sleep the previous night, but the late night had nothing to do with sex. Chuck's late night was the result of trying to deal with Sarah.

The beautiful agent had decided to throw herself fully into her cover. When she and Chuck had finally gone to bed she wanted no time in wrapping herself around him. He'd expected to have to share a bed with her with maybe some light cuddling, but she had taken it to a new level. She had one hand that disappeared somewhere behind him and reappeared entwined with his on the opposite side, a leg coiled around his own, and her other hand appeared to alternate between his hair and shoulders while he'd lost track of where her other leg hand gone. Last time he'd felt it, it had been creeping a little too close to his groin for comfort. Of course the fact that she had essentially foregone the use of her side of the bed in favor of using him as a bed didn't help matters. Sarah had certainly proved that she was the more nimble of the pair, not that Chuck had ever had any illusions to the contrary, and her head had ended up peacefully on his chest with a contented smile from listening to the sound of her "lover's" steady breathing. Chuck had no idea how she'd managed to get herself into whatever position she has in and while it felt fantastic it didn't seem like it could be very comfortable to her.

Sarah disagreed. She found the position very comfortable. She would have preferred a little more help from Chuck, but she'd ended up in her current spot happily enough. The slow rise and fall of his chest sent her into a deep slumber almost instantly. Unfortunately she hadn't managed to stay asleep for long as he attempted to disentangle her from him, something he was not very good at, she realized that she had been making him uncomfortable all night. The rest of her night had been spent worrying about her actions and his reaction.

And so Bryce found himself with two partners who both looked like death itself. The coffee had helped them, but only the adrenaline of a mission would manage to wake them up. "Okay, Chuck you and Sarah stay in the van, when I get the door open that's when you two move in."

"Okay." Chuck responded with a falsely upbeat tone. He turned back to his bank of computers from which he could monitor everything.

Sarah nodded at Bryce to go, "Watch him for me will ya Sarah?" Bryce asked as he slipped out into the cold Swiss air. A light snow was falling so the approach wouldn't be difficult; no perimeter guards to hear any snow crunch under his boots either.

Sarah calmly climbed into the back with the remains of her coffee and calmly sipped out it while she watched his progress. "I cleared some R&R for us with the director. After the last mission we'll head up into the Alps for a week of skiing, and sipping hot coca by the fire."

"How'd you manage to get two rooms on such short notice? It's the middle of the ski season!"

She almost dropped her precious, lifesaving coffee at the word "rooms" she hadn't booked "rooms" she had booked _a _room. Would he cancel just, because they had to share a room? "Yeah they didn't have two rooms available, we'll have to share a one bedroom." She honestly had no idea if it was a lie or not, the place was pretty full, but she'd never asked about a second room.

"Oh, okay."

Sarah glanced at the monitors and saw Bryce at the door. She knew him, and the lock, it wouldn't take him much longer. "Come on Chuck, time to go." She downed the rest of her warm, caffeinated drink and pulled open the van door.

"But Bryce hasn—" Chuck stopped when he glanced at the monitors and saw Bryce break open the door and disappear inside. "How did you do that?"

Sarah just shrugged and started heading towards their target. Chuck did a quick double check to make sure the correct camera loops were running and headed out after her.

"Damn its freezing here, how'd you survive here for a week let alone a couple of months?"

She smiled at him through the darkness, "you get used to it."

It didn't take them long to reach the open doorway and they quickly disappeared inside it. Bryce was nowhere to be seen. Sarah had memorized the plans to the installation, Chuck had a PDA out with the most recently updated plans displayed, along with the fastest route to his target and the camera locations.

They were both on the same mission, but had very different styles.

"Four guards, main atrium. Two stationary, two patrolling. No, make that three patrolling and one stationary." Bryce reported, his voice the pinnacle of professionalism. "Kill the lights on my mark."

Chuck flipped through his PDA screen until he got to the appropriate macro that would kill the lights and jam communications.

"Three…Two…One…Mark!" Bryce called through the calm. Chuck tapped the button on his digital assistant and he flipped back to the security camera screen. The atrium cameras all went out simultaneously and Chuck assumed the lights went out as well.

***

Bryce emerged from the bathroom he had been hiding in. The guards weren't well trained and Bryce easily stalked the first guard. As soon as the lights had gone off each guard and reacted by turning on a flashlight and trying their radios. When the radios failed the formerly stationary guard headed towards the door. "Chuck shut down the atrium, no one in or out." A moment later Bryce heard the doors lock. Bryce was glad for the moonless night, the atrium was almost pitch black and his night vision goggles provided an incredible advantage over the ill equipped guards. Their flashlights barely managed to penetrate the inky blackness, but his night vision filled the world with a green light that allowed him to easily identify the guards.

He approached the first guard, silently moved into position behind him. He wasted no time in grabbing the guard, pushing his gun into the poor guys head and choking off his windpipe. The guard struggled to breathe or make some kind of sound, but between the gun and Bryce's strong arm the guard succumbed to unconsciousness without alerting anyone.

"Tango one down." Bryce reported over the radio.

***

"We should be able to head through the staircase on the right up ahead." Chuck said in a hushed voice as he bumbled about in the darkness. Apparently the atrium lighting was connected to the adjacent hallways.

"Are you sure?" Sarah wasn't happy; she hated it when small things like shutting off extra lights happened that was usually the first sign that a mission was going bad.

"Yes." Chuck turned the device around so that it faced her, "See?"

She nodded and took off to the stairwell.

"Tangos two and three down." Bryce said over the radio.

By the time they and yanked open the door Bryce had dispatched the final guard and called for Chuck to open up the doors again. As Chuck went through his PDA to reverse his previous action he turned to looked at Sarah, "How did he take out four guys that quickly?"

Sarah shrugged, "Taser, a quick knock out, some drugs, and a pistol whipping—he really likes doing that—it's really not as hard as it sounds." If he had been allowed to kill them it would have been quicker, but would have raised way to many questions when dealing with the Swiss authorities.

"Chuck lockdown the building NOW!" Bryce screamed into his mic.

Chuck wasted no time in complying with the order. "Why? What's happening?"

"They've got way to many guards down here, upstairs looks better. I'll get up there myself, but you need to make sure that this whole building is locked down."

"It is." Chuck said as he continued up the stairs behind Sarah.

Sarah kicked out the stairwell door and burst through like a category five hurricane. The mission wasn't going to plan and she needed to get him into position quickly. "Let's go, it's down the end of this hallway." Sarah had her real gun in one hand a tazer gun in the other. She really wasn't intending to use the tazer gun, but it would make Chuck feel better if she at least had it out.

A security guard appeared in her field of view, his back to her. She had nearly put a few rounds into him, but decided instead to use the less-than-lethal weapon. She depressed its trigger and sent the massive jolt of electricity into the guard. He collapsed to the floor a couple of seconds later and she dropped the tazer, now using both hands to aim her weapon.

The pair moved quickly and when they finally got to the door Chuck dropped down on one knee and attached his hacking unit to the electronic door lock. After a couple of very tense minutes the door unlocked and the team slipped inside. "Bryce we're in. Report your position."

The air was thick with anticipation as only silence greeted them on the line. They exchanged a nervous look, "Agent Larkin please report your current status." Sarah asked again as she directed Chuck to start his work on the computer.

"We've got to go back, he's probably hurt or in danger."

"Chuck we can't until you get that information. Once you do I get you out of here and call in the Marines to get Bryce out of here.

Chuck glared at her, but was interrupted when the radio burst back to life, "I'm on the roof. I'll be outside the office in a few seconds." They both breathed a sigh of relief and Chuck went to the computer while Sarah took up a defensive position across from the door.

Bryce joined the pair a few minutes later and took up his own defensive position. "We weren't supposed to get caught." Sarah said derisively.

"Well that's why we prepared for the worst." Bryce retorted while reloading his weapon.

Fortunately it appeared that while the guards were aware that some kind of intrusion was happening they didn't know where so the team was able to remain in the office without being attacked. Sarah periodically checked the security camera footage and the guards appeared to be focused on the ground floor. One of them was attempting to call someone on the outside, but Chuck had managed to disconnect the phone line. The guards were faced with six of their fellow security guards down, large sections of the facility without power, cameras that weren't reliable, random security alerts popping up, and no contact to the outside world. It astounded Sarah that the guards weren't able to think of something as simple as taking out a cell phone and calling the police. Then she realized why, their bosses had probably given strict orders that the police were not to be called in order to protect the confidentiality of their clients

The exfiltration back to the van wasn't anywhere near as exciting as the infiltration was. With Chuck watching the cameras and two highly trained agents leading the way they'd avoided most of the guards and quickly dispatched the ones they did come into contact with. Back inside the van Sarah smiled, the op wasn't perfect, but it was a success.

***

**Washington D.C.**

**Thursday**

Mary Pat rubbed her tired eyes. It was late and she had an early meeting the next morning, but as she looked at her list she knew she wasn't done for the night. She'd been asked to name five agents one of whom would be selected for a special assignment. The decision was tough and filled with crossed out names.

_Sarah Walker_

_Bryce Larkin_

_Maria Ross_

_Cameron Williams_

_Domingo Chavez _

The last name was the one giving her the most trouble. Ding's name had been crossed out, penciled back in, erased, crossed out, and rewritten a dozen times already. He was certainly qualified for any assignment, but she wasn't sure she was comfortable losing him. She erased his name again and added in one of her newer agents

_Jacqueline Lopez. _

Her list was ready for Friday. She knew Walker had her final op scheduled for Monday and she hoped that either her or Larkin got chosen. They'd been her second best performing team recently, behind Clark and Ding of course, Sarah and Bryce had launched two ops this week. The first had gotten off to a rocky start, but ended up fine; the second mission had gone perfectly. They were taking a couple days off to plan the last one, but MP had no doubt it would also work out perfectly.

***

**Friday**

As The Deputy Director of Operations MP entered the White House without her usual air of confidence. Already present at the meeting was her direct boss, CIA director Graham, her ultimate boss President Ryan, her former mentor and trainer, John Clark, the NSA director General Beckman, and the Chief of Staff Arnie. More than a few heavy hitters.

"Sit down MP, you have your choices?" POTUS asked.

She nodded, "Yes sir. My first recommendation has to go to Sarah Walker, but all of the agents on the list would be an excellent choice for your assignment."

They all nodded, minus Ryan who elaborated. "I'm sure you're wondering what the project is, this classified top secret, not even Ed can know about it."

"Yes, sir." The DDO answered.

Graham handed her a file, but Ryan was the one who spoke. "The NSA are calling it The Intersect. It was, until recently, a simple super-computer. The NSA would feed everything, every last piece of intelligence we got into it and it would spit back out data on known terrorists. However in more recent years we've managed to expand its role."

"Into what sir?"

"'Human compatibility. One of the agents you chose will be the first test subject." Graham answered, this portion of the Intersect was his baby.

MP flipped through the file trying to understand this new reality. Someone was getting a computer in their brain? When the hell had this started?

"What we're going to do is take an Agent already comfortable with technology and outfit them with state-of-the-art computers, optics, weapons, and everything else we can. The Intersect will be one of those computers. It's going to be linked, wirelessly, to a camera in either the agent's contacts or glasses; whatever the cameras capture will be fed into the Intersect and it should recognize any terrorists. It'll vibrate a bit to warn the wearer and the dossier will be displayed." Graham explained.

Arnie spoke up next, "It's a joint operation between the CIA and NSA, Beckman has already chosen her operative, you were recommending Walker?"

"Given the nature of the assignment I think Larkin might be better, he is more comfortable with technology than Walker is, but who's going to be in charge?" MP hoped that was the reason Clark was here, if anyone could make this harebrained scheme work it was him.

"Mr. Clark will be in command of the operation," Graham answered.

"What are we going to do with Walker?"

"She'll be working with Larkin, we need someone very dedicated to protecting the Intersect."

***

**Monday**

The op had been going well, Sarah and Chuck were making good time, and Bryce had managed to take care of all the guards without alerting anyone. The entire operation seemed off though, there were far too few guards on duty. The whole thing didn't feel right.

Halfway up the staircase all hell broke loose. The low number of guards made sense if they had been planning an ambush and were now springing it. As bullets filled the tight staircase Sarah dragged Chuck into the adjacent hallway, "Bryce it's an ambush we need covering fire." Sarah barked through the radio as Sarah led them deeper into the floor.

She didn't get very far before the first guard appeared in the doorway. He opened fire and shredded a copier that was between Sarah and the enemy. She wasn't taking any chances this time and she returned fire with lethal precision. She continued rushing Chuck forward, I need you to get that data, can you get it any other way?"

"No."

Sarah nodded and headed for the staircase at the opposite end of the floor. "We need to get that data."

Fortunately Chuck had gotten down both his door hacking and computer hacking down to a science. It only took a few seconds. "Bryce secure some fast ropes to get us down on the straight from the office."

Fortunately the other stairwell appeared to be empty, a quick glance down told Sarah why: it had been sabotaged, the lower levels now offered no entrances.

When they reached their destination Sarah attempted to shoot her way in, but the glass was bullet resistant and successful resisted her weapons fire.

It didn't take the guards long to figure out where they were, Sarah was quickly up to her eyes with action. She spun out of cover, sent two rounds towards the guards and then retreated back to cover. It probably saved her life as a fusillade of bullets impacted and peppered the location of where she had just been.

That was the last time Sarah had attempted to stick her head out. She went on giving warning shots from cover for the next minute or so as Chuck finished his job. "Bryce we good?" Sarah asked over the radio.

Bryce had headed up to the next floor and hung the ropes down. "Hook on Chuck," he called as he slipped down on the opposite side of the window. Chuck did his best to comply, but between the bullets, mission nerves, and a fear of heights he wasn't exactly sure he had done it properly. Bryce twisted around and saw a stream of approaching police cars. "Move it we have to go now." He let the rope slip between his hands and he dropped down.

Sarah saw Chuck on the rope and nodded for him to go down, before taking off after her own rope. She launched herself out the window grabbed the rope and slid down. She felt like there should have been some accompanying explosion, but none came. Being experienced and trained she made it to the ground well before Chuck.

Chuck managed to do pretty decently until the last several meters. Whether it was a shout from below, a gunshot from above, or the police sirens, but Chuck panicked and bumbled the rope. He fell the remaining distance and crashed into the snow covered side walk. When Sarah saw him, she rushed over to him. Sarah's eyes were wild with fear as she hovered over him, "Chuck! Oh god, are you in a lot of pain? SOMEONE GET A DOCTOR." He groaned in pain as he tried to roll over, "Chuck, don't move, hopefully paramedics will be here soon."

"Sarah, we need to get him into the van, he'll be in a world of hurt if he gets caught." Bryce was concerned for his friends well being, but being caught spying in a foreign country wasn't very good for either Chuck's long term health or any team member's career.

Sarah was still over Chuck frantically searching for anything that could help her attend to his wounds. "Go, he needs real medical attention; I'll take care of him. Call MP and let her know what's happening."

Bryce looked at her; he knew she was right a fall like that would require some real medical attention, but he didn't like it.

***

Colonel Casey leaned back against his chair. He looked longingly at the photo of his favorite president sitting on his desk. He removed he cigar from his lips and exhaled the smoke. The M4 slung across his chest was a sore reminder of what he'd never again get to do. The banks of computers were now his hunting grounds, analysts his weapons. He missed the feel of firing his weapon at an actual enemy, missed the sounds, smells, and taste of combat. He belonged with his unit in Waziristan, not overseeing Echelon analysts and the enormous amount of data they generated each day. They were a bunch of desk jockeys, he was a soldier.

Out of the corner of his highly trained eye he spotted his superior enter the floor. He quickly tossed the cigar, sat up and returned the rifle to its usual place across the office from him. General Beckman walked up to his glass office and entered without knocking, "Colonel Casey."

He snapped to attention. "At ease Colonel." She said before he could respond.

"How do you like your current assignment?" She asked, she didn't particularly care if he liked it or not, but it would be a nice piece of information to know.

"May I speak freely ma'am?"

She nodded, "Yes Colonel."

"I'd rather be out there in the action, ma'am." He said hoping he wasn't crossing some line. When she smiled he knew that he hadn't.

"Good, I think I might have the perfect assignment for you Colonel."

A/N- I haven't decided if I'm going to have the full blown Chuck Intersect in the brain included. What would you guys like?

Please feel free to leave any and all comments, complaints, issues, critiques, hellos, or anything else.


	5. Change of Plans

Chapter 5- Change of Plans

A/N- Thanks to Verkisto for the German translations. One superficial change to Chuck here, I just think the show writers missed a very cool opportunity and I had to take it.

Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep was the first thing that Chuck heard when he woke up in the hospital. When he tried to sit up he was met with a gentle hand on his chest pushing him back down. "You need to rest, is there anything you want or need?"

Chuck was puzzled by the voice; the last thing he remembered was jumping on the rope. "Sarah?"

"You took a nasty fall, we're in the hospital."

Chuck bolted up and turned to her, "Are you okay?"

She smiled at him, "Yeah Chuck I'm fine. You, however, need to stop falling off of BUILDINGS in the future!" She punched in the shoulder.

"Ow what was that for?" he collapsed back down into the bed.

"For scaring me. You could have died." She thought back to the moments after she had first called for an ambulance.

***

"_Chuck look at me," She said shining a bright light in his eyes. She quickly checked to see if his pupils were dilating and was relieved to see they were. "Chuck, don't move. Your hurt and—CHUCK!" She screamed as she noticed his head just lolled to the side when she let go of it. He'd slipped into unconsciousness. She looked at the approaching squad cars with a mix of apprehension and relief; they were Chuck's best hope for medical attention, but would probably arrest her. She clutched his hand and rocked gently back in forth whispering in his ear, "Please be okay, you can't leave me now." _

_It didn't take long for the leader to approach backed up by what looked like the city's entire police force, "H__ände hoch."_

_Sarah didn't move, she just continued clutching Chuck's hand and murmuring for him to be okay. _

"_H__ände hoch, _oder ich schieße" _This time the call came with the sound of numerous weapons being leveled at her. _

_That woke her up, "CALL AN AMBULANCE, HE'S HURT." She screamed at them. When he complied and called for one on his radio she relaxed, "Helps on the way, you're going to be okay. I'll be there when you wake up." She then raised her hands into the air. As she did so she remembered the ID Chuck have given her after the first mission. _

_The police swarmed around her as soon as she did, "We have evidence indicating that this, and other, firms have been aiding in the sale of nuclear materials to prohibited nations. We're from the IAEA. Can I?" She indicated that she wanted to produce her ID._

_The officer warily nodded. _

_She flashed the credentials that Chuck had crafted for her after the first raid. They'd determined that it had something to do with nuclear materials and he'd decided to give her an International Atomic Energy Agency badge; since it was unofficial it wouldn't stand up to even the most rudimentary scrutiny, but people didn't usually ask to many questions after the words IAEA and stolen nukes. People generally freaked out. Assuming that would satisfy him she turned her attention back to Chuck._

"_I was not informed of your activities in the area." Apparently he was one of the people who didn't freak out at the mention of the words "stolen nuclear weapon."_

"_We weren't sure that it was true so we went in undercover." She said without looking up, she felt around Chuck's waist looking for the flash drive. _

_The officer accepted the thumb drive and called for a computer to be brought up. When it arrived he ordered her to show him the information. She looked nervously at the information scrolling across the screen, this was really Chuck's area. _

_Fortunately for her Chuck hadn't downloaded to much information and she was able to spot what she needed. "See this? It's a fund transfer from a certain unnamed government," she couldn't very well tell him which country was selling nuclear material, "to a well let's just say some unsavory characters."_

_He nodded and moved into the building as Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. The chief had bought her story and the ambulance had just pulled up. "Chuck you're going to be okay the paramedics are here."_

_***_

"So you hurt me for getting hurt? How does that make sense?"

"It doesn't, but I don't care." She sent him a mock glare, but linked her hand with his.

"Where's Bryce?"

"Langley, reporting back to MP on the mission." She responded with a smile.

"Why aren't you with him?"

She wasn't sure if she was ready to tell him the truth on the matter, which was that she was there because he was, or if a lie would be better. She opted for both, "Well you're here for one and I couldn't leave you alone, your safety is my responsibility."

He nodded. "So you managed to keep us out of jail that's good."

"Yeah, your IAEA badges came in handy well at least for a few hours, then it kind of went a little sour when some cop called the IAEA, of course they'd never heard of us, but it bought MP enough time to get someone from State to work out some sort of deal with the Swiss. Still not really sure how she did that."

"As long as we don't end up in a tiny little jail cell does it matter?"

She smiled at him, "Yeah, I guess. And Chuck I've…uh…I've got a small little cozy room rented out at a local ski resort if you want to..."

"What about Bryce?"

"Its just me and you." She said with a flirtatious smile.

His brow furrowed in confusion.

She decided to quit playing games, "It's going to be romantic and I'd rather not have Bryce there."

"Oh."

That was her breaking point. "Oh? That's all you have to say? You don't make any sense, you don't have a girlfriend, you're not gay, and you called me attractive so why the hell are you treating me like I've got the plague? Are you the thickest guy on the planet or do you not want to go out with me?" She topped of her tirade with a glare that'd stop a wild bull in its tracks.

"Sarah I think your great, hell anyone who talked to you for more than five minutes would; your beautiful, smart, funny, but you're a CIA agent and while I'd absolutely love to go on that nice romantic vacation with you I don't think it's a good idea. I don't know about you, but I'm not really looking for a fling I've been there and done that."

She gave him a nod indicating that she wasn't looking for one either.

"Okay, but what kind of actual relationship could you have, Sarah? You spend so little time in DC that you don't even have your own apartment! I'd see you what once every couple of months? I'm sorry, but that isn't enough. Not only the distance, but I know what you guys have to do. I'm not sure I could handle dating an active field agent and I know you love your job, I can see it in your eyes so I wouldn't ever ask you to leave it. If we're both still single in the future when you aren't working in the field than I'd love to take you out for a drink, but I…I can't deal with dating someone who I'm never going to see and who has to lie, cheat, steal, kill, flirt, and seduce her way around the world.

"That wasn't spontaneous was it?"

"No."

"You just let me go around planning this little vacation and flirting with you despite having no intentions of following through with either of them, didn't you?" She stormed to the door.

"NO! I had the speech ready, but I…I have another. I really didn't know whether I'd say yes or no so I kinda came up with two speeches one in the event I said yes and one if I said no."

She stopped at the threshold. "What if I wasn't going to be going off on missions?"

"Sarah I won't ask you to quit your job."

"I'm joining the East Asia desk sometime next year. There's going to be an opening and MP offered me the promotion."

"Congratulations, but are you sure you should take it? I can tell you'll miss the field."

She shook her head, "I'll be fine."

"Well the next time we're going to be spending an extended period of time together I'd be honored if you'd do me the pleasure of accompanying me to dinner."

It wasn't what she wanted, but it was a start.

***

**Langley **

"Where's the rest of your team? MP asked as she walked into her office.

Bryce turned around in his chair and faced her, "Chuck is the in hospital."

"Sarah?"

"With Chuck." The blonde director noted the familiarity in his voice when he mentioned Bartowski.

"Do you know Mr. Bartowski?"

"College roommates."

She nodded, "Are they under arrest?"

"No, Chuck fabricated an IAEA ID for us so that if we were captured we'd display that. Wouldn't hold up to any kind of real scrutiny, but it worked on whoever would have arrested them."

"And the rest of the op?"

Bryce handed her two datasticks. "This is the data from the first two ops, Sarah has the data from the last one."

MP nodded, "What'd you find?"

"Confirmed the connection."

"Good."

"Bryce, we need to speak off the record."

"Yes ma'am."

"Where are Sarah's loyalties?"

Bryce paused for a moment to consider his response. "Ma'am?" He wasn't ready to commit either way yet, not until he knew where this was going.

"Regardless of Mr. Bartowski's health Sarah should be here, she obviously isn't. Even in the event that she needed to take him to the hospital, she should have taken the next flight to DC. She isn't needed with him, and remaining behind puts her at risk. So why is she showing such dedication to him as opposed to following protocol?"

"With all due respect ma'am, she isn't. One of us had to stay behind with him and the getaway was easier for me so I got out and she stayed. Now she's just upholding her cover."

"She likes him."

"We don't spend our days talking about our feelings."

Mary Pat just looked at him. She didn't buy that he had no idea about what was going on between Walker and Bartowski. She eyed the file on her desk, Larkin was supposed to be informed of the new assignment, but given what she had learned about the project she couldn't help but wonder if perhaps she chosen the wrong person for the job. "How does Bartowski rate on firearms?"

"He doesn't, refused to touch a gun. He's not cut out for field work, he doesn't want to see people die or get hurt. He's not going to shoot anyone. He's amazing at the technical stuff, but if things get violent he won't be able to back you up."

"What about having him remain in a surveillance van or other secured location?"

"That might work, but you really should try and avoid sending him out into the field at all. He isn't cut out for it, he'll die."

MP nodded. Great technical skills, prefers to avoid overt displays of hostility, dislike of killing, has a conscience they all seemed like good qualities for an Intersect. Especially the part about not killing, after she had heard what this thing was she had developed reservations about giving it to someone who was trained and capable of operating on their own. She'd given her recommendation to the President without even knowing what it was for, and once she had found out she hadn't had the time to really comprehend what was happening.

She pressed the intercom, "Get me the White House." She waited a moment for her secretary to complete the request.

"Line one ma'am."

MP took a deep breath and picked up the phone, it was a gamble betting on some technician as opposed to a trained agent, but she was always a risk taker. "Yeah I need to speak to President."

"It's about our newest op." She smiled when she heard the immediate difference in tone.

She glanced at her watch, she had another project she had wanted to deal with first, but this had to take priority. "Top of the hour? Yeah I can make that."

She hung up the phone, grabbed her coat, and was out the door in a matter of seconds.

***

The president was facing the window, gazing out at the world. "Mr. President, I'd like to ask you to reconsider who you're going to choose for the Intersect assignment. I think giving it to a tech would be better; if we have someone who is able to both get the intelligence and act on it alone we could end up with someone operating without our orders. If we give it to someone who cannot operate alone, well they couldn't really go rogue."

Ryan turned away, "You have someone in mind I take it?"

"Mr. Bartowski, I think would make an excellent candidate. Agent Walker could remain as his partner and Agent Larkin can be the one to carry out the missions."

"It's your operation, go ahead."

MP nodded, that was much easier than she had expected. "I'll have Pandora set it up."

***

**Langley R&D**

The Intersect Project lead grumbled as she headed into work to reset everything and prepare for a different test subject. She had been expecting to do it on Larkin, but a few hours earlier had received orders that someone named Charles Bartowski was to receive the Intersect.

She booted up the computer and after login pulled up the patient file. She deleted the old Larkin one and replaced it with a new one named _Bartowski, Charles. _

On the other monitor she pulled up the CIA's personnel file on him and began filling out the paperwork. When she finally finished and saved it a couple hours later she had no idea that he had activated a long dormant section of code on the computer.

***

**Australian Outback**

The laptop issued an uncharacteristic beep. It took a moment for the scientist to realize what that alert meant, but when he did he cursed. Of all the alerts in the world that was the one he had never hoped to hear, but it served as his call to action. After a few minutes he shook his head in disgust, this wouldn't do at all. What they were doing was pathetic, a mere shadow compared to what could be done.

He prepared an email to his old friend, and sent it on its way.

***

**Langley R&D**

As the doctor prepared to head out on his lunch hour he received an email alert. She wasn't planning on reading it until he saw who the author was.

_Prometheus. _

She pulled up the message.

_Pandora, I've been watching you. I may have left years ago, but you had to have known I still had some feelers in the system. In fact I suspect you left them there on purpose, perhaps you realized that with your antiquated technology whoever you give that thing to is going to end up dead within the month. Perhaps you realized that and the fact that I don't want anyone to die, because of my brainchild, well if you did congratulations because I've enclosed the schematics for a far superior version, use it I don't want anyone dying from the project. I'm not coming back, I presume you're trying to trace the email, don't bother I'll be long gone. _

She didn't bother to read the rest of the message before using her cell phone to call Ed Foley's private number and bypass all the secretaries and administrative assistants.

***

Ed poked his head into his wife's office, "He's back."

"Who?"

Ed didn't respond, but waited a minute for her to realize there was only one person he could be talking about.

It took her about fifteen seconds to realize who Ed was talking about, "He's back?"

"Pandora got an email from him." He said as she shut down the computer and gathered the relevant files.

"Trace?" She grabbed her coat, she'd probably be spending the rest of the day in the operations center.

"The outback." He said leading the way out the door.

"Where are Clark and Ding?" She asked already going through the people she wanted on the op.

"Africa."

She bit her lip thinking, "How important is it?"

"Asset extraction. What about Ross and Williams?" He pulled up their file on his PDA, "Shipping out tomorrow for Kosvo."

"Think they're up to it?"

"Yeah."

She nodded and he altered their orders.

***

**Switzerland**

The doctor flipped over the chart, "Well Mr. Bartowski everything looks good. You're free to go. I'll be back with your discharge papers."

As he walked out Sarah walked back in having just finished a phone call. "Chuck, we're needed back at Langley ASAP. They're sending another plane for us."

"Okay I get why they need you back there, but what's the rush for me?"

"All I know is that MP said they wanted you for some new project headed up by Mr. Clark."

Chuck's eyes went wide with fear, he knew of the man's reputation.

"Don't worry I'm being assigned to one of his projects to, he probably runs half a dozen or so and just oversees them from afar. Mine job is Asset Protection and yours has something to do with Data Analysis, Technical Problem Solving, and Processing Raw Intelligence Data into Actionable Intelligence. Those can't be the same project, so we know he's running at least two."

***

**Somalia**

"Who do you work for? CIA? NSA? MI6? KGB? Mossad?" Ahmed asked.

His captive started to laugh, but a broken rib made it rather difficult. "You might want to update your information MI6 and the KGB don't even exist and the NSA doesn't even do Human Intelligence, but I told you I'm writing a book about the CIA's involvement in your country so I was asking some questions okay?"

The torturer shook his head no, "I think you may tell a different story when I'm finished." He stepped aside revealing a set of dangerous looking knives on top of a crate. "I went through great pains to acquire these weapons."

Normally upon being confronted with such hideous devices the captive would begin to sweat profusely and attempt to avoid them. However when Ahmed, the captor, turned around his captive appeared calmer, more relaxed, than he had before. The man even had a smile on his face! "I must admit, I'm not as skilled with them as I would like to be, but what is your American adage? Practice make perfect? I shall put that to the test."

"Yeah shame about that, you aren't ever going to get to try it."

"You'll talk?"

"No, but the CIA has this one guy, fucking insane at what he does former Navy Seal and all that. Anyway when one of us newbie agents gets in a bind they send him out to clean up the mess, so why don't you open the door and see how your men are doing." Ahmed scowled at his victim, but nevertheless retrieved his pistol and opened the door calling for one of his guards. None of them answered, not that they were known for their professionalism in the first place.

"He already got them all?" The CIA spook taunted.

One of the guards appeared in the tent across the camp. "Looks like you spoke to soon, spy."

The guard kept advancing across the open ground. Ignoring Ahmed's calls to return to his patrol. As he got closer Ahmed realized that he wasn't a guard he recognized, he was taller, and bigger, much bigger than most of his other guards.

Ahmed should have realized that few in his country were that muscular, not really having access to adequate food or supplies, but the prospect of torturing a CIA agent blinded him to the approaching danger. His mind only realized the threat when the "guard" leveled his weapon at him and fired.

Clark stepped over the newly dead body and approached the captured CIA officer. "Can you walk?"

"I think so." The CIA officer replied.

"Greg Hasen?"

"Yes sir."

Clark spoke into his throat mic, "Ding bring up the jeep time to get out of here."

"Roger, Mr. C. ETA five minutes."

A/N- Awesome people review, because reviews are awesome. If you'd like to be awesome/great/cool/whatever adjective you like then please leave a review.

Do you guys want the new name or the canon name, I've already written the backstory for both so which name do you guys prefer?


	6. Through the Looking Glass

Chapter 6- Through the looking glass.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed.

A/N- Last Chapter I introduced a new character named Prometheus, and mentioned a superficial change to Chuck canon. That change was Orion's was changed to Prometheus. I personally prefer the symbolism of Prometheus as opposed to Orion, but it didn't really work out so I'll call him Orion for now on. As to why he signed his email Prometheus? At this point in Orion's life he considers himself to be a modern day Prometheus and signed his communiqués with the government as such. I'll phase that as soon as possible, but it will pop up for short time.

Pandora was positively giddy as MP entered her lab. Normally she didn't deal with top level operations people and the chance to impress the Deputy Director of Operations was a big one. "Madam Director as you know we were recently contacted by Orion or Prometheus as he's taken to calling himself now. Well I can tell you that he hasn't lost a single bit of his edge. I know he didn't send me half of what he has, but what he did send me should allow me to construct an entirely new Intersect."

"Oh?"

"His stuff makes our old Intersect look like a dinosaur. He uses the human brain as the computer. He stores the information inside the subject's memory, and whenever the subject is exposed to certain stimuli the appropriate intelligence would become available."

"Is that _safe?_"

"Oh yes, the subject might experience some discomfort when the information is recalled and they would need refreshers on the information periodically, but apart from that they should be fine." She waved dismissively.

"How did Mr. Bartowski rate for it?"

"Excellent, when will he be available?" Pandora was practically salivating at the thought of using it on someone.

"When will your upgrades be completed?"

"I called in every favor I'm owed and should have it done by the end of the week."

"That fast?" MP was shocked she would be able to do it in only a couple of days.

"Well most of what we need already exists here so there isn't much that we need. If I had to build it from scratch that would take me about at least a year, but I've already got 95% of the stuff I need here."

MP just nodded, this was really more of the DS&T's, John Williams, territory. "And its totally safe? I don't want my technician to die twenty minutes after getting this thing."

"Yes, like I said the Intersect is perfectly safe." Pandora said as she arrived at the door to the Intersect room. She pressed her palm onto the scanner and the door opened.

They entered the spacious white room furnished with only a single computer terminal.

"This is it?"

"That computer terminal, yes." Pandora said as she went proudly smiled at her newest creation.

"I'll send him over to you as soon as I finish briefing him on Friday." MP said heading for the room's exit.

***

MP regretted having recalled Walker and Bartowski so early, the new Intersect wouldn't be ready for several more days and now he had to go back to his regular job while Sarah would sit around doing nothing. She had managed to get their debriefing scheduled for the end of the week so at least she could carry out the debriefing and briefing in one meeting. She had spoken to Sarah briefly on the phone when they had arrived stateside, but had no real idea what the pair were doing with their time.

***

Sarah didn't have much to do, and had simply elected to stay in a hotel for the few days. Unfortunately the CIA wasn't exactly known for its generous pay and most of the mid level hotels were booked up due to some convention, speech, or protest. Sarah hadn't really bothered to pay attention. She had eventually found herself in some seedy motel on the outskirts of the city, she had contemplated calling Chuck and asking him if she could stay at his place, but given his recent rejection she figured that trying to move in with him would probably be coming on a bit to strong.

***

Chuck had made the mistake of returning to work, where he encountered Jill.

"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!" She screamed the moment her eyes recognized his curly hair, and brown eyes.

"I was on a uh, mission."

"Are you okay?" She asked immediately switching to doctor mode. While she technically wasn't an M.D. that didn't stop her from starting to poke and prod him, as she searched for any trace of a wound.

"I had a little fall, but I'm okay. The docs already checked me out and I'm sure Ellie will to once I get home." He said trying to escape her grasp.

"You're sure?"

He nodded. "It was actually kind of fun, Bryce is an agent."

Jill nodded, Bryce was the furthest thing from her mind. "Did you get shot at?"

He gave her a weak smile, "Yes, but I'm fine, see no bullet holes."

Jill rolled her eyes, she was ready to hurt him, "So you were going out there getting shot with just pretty boy Bryce as backup?"

"Well no Sarah was there to."

Chuck had just managed to find a way to divert Jill's attention. "Wait Sarah Walker? The agent that's got the hots for you?" Jill teased with a smile, although she was serious about the agent's feelings. Chuck's weeklong absence had fueled Ellie and Jill's speculation, especially once Jill had caught wind of office gossip indicating that Sarah Walker had returned late one night and left the next day with someone. It hadn't taken them very long to put two and two together, as the only woman who had shown an interest in Chuck returned late at night, and then her and Chuck were gone the next day? That couldn't be a coincidence.

"What! How did you know Sarah was attracted to me? You two only met once."

Chuck's confirmation of Sarah's feeling could mean only one thing to Jill, "You two are dating now! I'm so happy for you Chuck."

Chuck wanted to roll his eyes, his sister and ex-girlfriend acted like they were still in High School when it came to him dating. "We're not dating, I didn't want to date someone who would never be around."

Jill hit him. "You idiot! Why would you turn her down? Go back to her and apologize and then take her out somewhere really nice. Right now, knowing you, you aren't even scheduled to come into work." She shoved her finger into his chest to emphasize the point.

Chuck recognized that if he wanted to survive the day he should probably get out as soon as he could. Plus she was right he didn't actually have to be at work until Friday. "Okay, I'll go do that right now." He grabbed his coat and made a hasty retreat. In reality he didn't know where Sarah was actually staying, but Jill didn't know that and Chuck could hide for a couple of days.

***

**Chuck's Apartment**

While Chuck might not have known where Sarah lived, he did have her private number. She was nice enough, even if their relationship didn't have future so why not call her? He quickly pulled up her contact information and dialed her number.

"Hey, Sarah." He said trying to sound as casual as possible.

"Hi." Her response sounded almost downright depressed.

"Did I catch you at a bad time?"

"No, it's just—never mind, what's up?"

"Where are you staying?"

"I dono some motel outside the city."

Her tone told him that it was probably some seedy motel that charged by the hour. "That doesn't sound very nice; you know I have an extra bed if you want to…"

That perked her right up, "Really? I wouldn't want to impose."

"It'd be no bother at all."

"I'll be over in twenty minutes, you're sure I won't be imposing?" Chuck could hear the sounds of her packing already.

"Not at all."

"I'll be there soon, bye."

"See you soon."

*******

**Langley, Friday. **

Mary Pat was returning to her office after retrieving The Director of Science and Technology. When she entered her outer office she saw Bartowski and Walker waiting with only minimal awkwardness. She motioned for them to follow her and her fellow director inside.

When they were all settled, MP behind her desk, Sarah and Chuck across from the desk, and DS&T on the side, MP began the meeting, "Mr. Bartowski I would like to thank you on behalf of the operations department, your help in our latest operation was invaluable."

"Thank you, but I was just doing my job; it wasn't really that difficult anyone could have done it."

"Ma'am he's just being modest. What he did goes well beyond what anyone else could have or would have done."

MP held up her hand signaling for silence, "I understand what Mr. Bartowski did and I thank him for his service, unfortunately this department is still in need of his services."

"Director?" Chuck asked.

John, the DS&T answered, "Mr. Bartowski I'm not going to order you to work on this new project, but I'd recommend it. It's dangerous, but the rewards are enormous. You will be out in the field a lot more, so you'll be working under the DDO's purview."

"Would I have to kill anyone?" The spies noted a very real fear in his eyes, he wasn't a killer.

"No, we want you as far away from the action as possible."

Chuck nodded, his agency, his government, and his country needed him, how could he say no? "What do I have to do?"

Both directors smiled, "Agent Walker meet your new asset."

They looked at each, clearly alarmed. "I—uh—What, ma'am?"

"Mr. Bartowski will be in need of round the clock protection, since you already appear to be quite capable and willing in providing said protection I'm assigning you to this project. You will live and work with the Charles."

Sarah barely suppressed her smile, she was essentially getting an assignment that would render Chuck's arguments null and void. Of course one question remained, "What about Bryce?"

"The rest of the team has not yet been finalized."

Knowing that it was just her and Chuck on the team, Sarah moved forward on her seat and adopted a slightly defensive posture, "Who are we going to be reporting to?"

"John Clark."

Both Sarah and Chuck felt the breath catch in their throat. If Clark was personally overseeing this operation it was certainly important. They'd known he was in charge, but had never expected him to be personally commanding them. "Ma'am, when are we going to receive a full briefing?"

"After Mr. Bartowski has completed the first part of the assignment, you will be briefed. Are there anymore questions?"

"Wait what's the first part of the assignment?"

"That we will brief you on once we're en route. Ready?"

Chuck nodded, still having very little idea of what to expect. Chuck's director moved to the door and MP rose, herself.

"Sarah you can wait here, but you might want to go to the cafeteria and get something to eat in the mean time." She said quietly to her protégé.

Chuck followed the two directors out the door. Leaving Sarah alone in the spacious office to ponder what could be happening to her maybe-almost-future-boyfriend.

***

After exiting Langley and entering the car for the drive the directors looked at Chuck. "Thank you for agreeing to do this, now for the briefing." MP started before indicating for DS&T to continue.

"As you know, we've been building an intelligence database with the goal being to create a master database that contains all the take from every agency. We've been calling it the Intersect, but that was only the first step Intersect 0.0 if you will. We've been miniaturizing it and trying to get it small enough for personal use, the idea being that if we could have agent armed with the entire database we would be able to dramatically increase their effectiveness. We had a breakthrough; we're going to install the database into your mind."

Chuck's eyes were bulging out of his head. "Is that safe?"

"Definitely, we wouldn't do it if we weren't 100% sure it was safe."

"So what am I going to do once I get the intelligence? Give it to Sarah?"

"No, Sarah's mission is solely to keep you safe. We'll have someone else to deal with the actual intelligence."

"This seems rather simple, is that really all there is to it?"

"The rest will be explained by Mr. Clark afterwards."

"We would like you to know that at this point we don't know if we can remove the Intersect. Even when we can figure this out, the operation will still be a multi-year mission at the end of which, you and all involved will receive a significant promotion, and pay raise." Chuck nodded, the pay wasn't his reason for doing it.

The car pulled up to the lab and they led Chuck inside. Pandora met them happily at the door and promptly began chatting Chuck's ear off with all the techo-speak of what was about to happen. MP turned to her colleague and whispered, "She doesn't get out much does she?"

He stifled a laugh, "No."

Finally they reached the door, "We wait here. Chuck, you can go in the computers all set up."

He looked at the door, his future lay on the other side. He stepped across the threshold, this was it a life changing moment. After the door slid shut behind him he took a deep breath and proceeded to the computer terminal. He placed his palm on the scanner.

**Charles I. Bartowski Identity Confirmed**

The machinery activated and the walls filled with images.

***

**Fort Meade**

"So general what exactly is my mission?" Casey asked.

"You are to ensure that the Intersect does not fall into enemy hands, also given your special talent set you will probably be involved in most of the raids. If the Intersect is ever captured you need to recover him immediately or if that cannot be accomplished, neutralize him. We cannot allow the Intersect to fall into enemy hands."

"So I'm responsible for this kids safety? Sounds like babysitting." Normally he never would have talked like that to a superior, but he and Beckman had a rather special relationship. She'd poached him right out of the special forces.

Beckman cracked a smile, "No the CIA is sending someone to make sure Mr. Bartowski is happy. You just need to sit back and kill anyone who threatens him."

"Now that sounds more like what I signed up for."

***

**Langley, DDO's Office.**

Chuck and the directors arrived back in the office to find Sarah sitting on the couch eating a muffin. When she heard the door open she looked up and smiled when she saw him. Her face triggered his first flash.

_A Rose_

_Her recruitment file_

_A list of successful operations_

_A list of failed operations_

_Psychological Profile_

_Special Notes from the DDO_

_A Rose_

The overload of information stunned him causing him to lose his balance and fall to the floor. When he came to a minute later Sarah was hovering over him checking him for any sign of a medical problem and muttering something about Swiss doctors.

"Sarah did you really escape from a Pakistani prison by yourself?"

The color drained out of her face.

"He has the entire CIA database in his mind now." DS&T explained.

"Uh yeah." She said awkwardly.

"Sorry that was just my first flash and it was a bit powerful, I wasn't ready for it."

"Well it's a good thing my stuff is already at your place, because I'm not letting you out of my sight tonight." When she realized what she had just said she stopped and looked nervously at MP. Sarah was relieved to see she had on an amused smile.

"Had a hard time forgetting the cover?"

Both Sarah and Chuck went beet red.

"Chuck we need to discuss some things about your employment." The Science Director said to Chuck. It was really a cover so that MP could discuss things with Sarah.

The moment the door closed she started her quick briefing. "He's going to go out into the world, and flash on terrorists. Your job is to keep him safe and happy."

"Ma'am are you ordering me to—"

"No, I wouldn't ask you to do that, this project will likely last for years."

Sarah's face fell a bit, while she normally hated those kinds of orders, with Chuck it was something she was looking forward to.

MP caught it, "Sarah, honey, I'm not ordering you to not touch him. I certainly don't expect you to be a priest for the next couple of years, but I'm not going to force you and that poor boy to start a relationship. You'll have to ask him out yourself."

Sarah just nodded, she was open with MP, but she wasn't going to tell her she had already asked him out and been denied. "It won't cause any problems if we were to say date?"

"That's up to you, but I don't have a problem with you dating someone with whom you're already living, working, and possibly sleeping with."

Sarah just nodded again. She felt excitement spreading throughout her body, this was going to be her favorite assignment.

When Chuck walked back in a minute later Sarah was able to look him in the eyes with a smile, she was so going to get him.

A/N- Your reviews really help, they make me want to write more (and better), and help me try and get a feel for what you guys like and don't like. So please review.

Oh and the reason he never flashed on John Williams (DS&T) or Mary Pat is that Senior Staff had their files deleted from the Intersect.


	7. We are about to Embark

Chapter 7- We are about to Embark

A/N Anyone ever see Spy Game?

**Somalia, Sunrise**

Ahmed shut the door to the shack behind him; it stank of blood, vomit, and other bodily fluids and he very much wanted to put as much distance between him and the CIA agent as he could. Of course he still had to finish, but first he needed to check in. He dialed the Sat phone shakily; this torture session had gotten to him. Finally the phone made the connection, "Hello?"

"Do you have the information I requested?"

"No, the agent held up far better than I expected, I'm going to need additional time."

"You have five hours. You know what happens to those who fail me."

"Yes, sir. I won't sir." Ahmed responded. His employer was not someone you could say no to, but torturing someone else was not a prospect he was looking forward to. After today he knew that what others had told him was right, he wasn't cut out for this business.

Ahmed's benefactor killed the conversation immediately after. As Ahmed turned back to the door he paused, the hairs on his neck stood up on end, an ancient physiological response that no longer served any purpose, he felt like he was being watched. He shot a quick glance around the desert sands, but saw no one.

While he saw no one that didn't mean there wasn't anyone out there. A few hundred meters to his north underneath a camo netting his executioners lay. The operatives stared through the high-powered scope and made their final adjustments for the wind and other elements.

Ahmed turned back to the door and placed his hand on the door.

The sniper applied pressure to the trigger and felt the large rifle fire.

Ahmed began to turn the knob when the bullet slammed into his brain stem, killing both him and any nerve impulses to and from his brain.

The sniper team threw off the netting and began trudging towards their objective.

The senior operative sent a quick message back to his embassy.

_Operation Dinner Out, success. _

_ETA 4h._

The response came back immediately.

_They want you back ASAP, some new mission for you._

***

**Saturday, Langley. 8:40 PM**

Chuck and Sarah sat in the briefing room together waiting for everyone else to arrive. Everyone had been fully briefed on their role within the team, but they had yet to come together and all meet. The door opened and each held their breath waiting to see who would enter. It was Bryce, and Sarah relaxed while Chuck flashed. Bryce took a seat across from Chuck, "So Sarah where have you been?" He half teased, not noticing Chuck's flash.

Sarah ignored him for a moment and focused her attention on Chuck, "Hey, you okay?" She asked pressing two fingers into his throat in an attempt to find his pulse while her other hand directed his face towards hers so she could check his pupils.

"Yeah I think the first one I just wasn't prepared for."

"Sorry to interrupt your touching moment, but seriously Sarah where were you? I was worried about you." By the time he finished his voice was positively overflowing with sarcasm.

Sarah wanted to glare at him, but with Chucks arm rubbing against hers it was taking all her energy to avoid blushing. "Oh, she was uh—uh staying with me. I didn't know you two had plans and when she told me that she was staying in some seedy motel I thought she might want to stay somewhere nicer so I invited her over. I didn't realize you'd want to spend time with your partner."

"Chuck don't apologize, it was my decision to my spend time with you, not yours or Bryce's." She said purposely rubbing her arm against his.

Sarah smiled at the memories of her the time she'd spent with him.

***

_**Wednesday Night**_

_Sarah hurried through the rain to get from the cover of her Porsche to the cover of Chuck's apartment building, but it was no use by the time she arrived at the front door of his building she was drenched. Her hair was soaked, make up ruined, and she didn't even want to think about her clothes. She leaned back against the wall, so much for looking her best. "Come on inside you'll catch a cold." _

_His voice startled her, she had assumed he'd be upstairs and would just buzz her in, but apparently he had been waiting downstairs for her. In his outstretched hand lay a towel, she couldn't help but smile. "Thanks." She said accepting the towel and walking through the door. _

"_I figured you'd get drenched coming in so I came down."_

"_Thanks." She said rubbing the towel through her hair in an attempt to dry off._

_Chuck glanced back outside towards her car, "Do you have any bags?"_

"_I'll get them in the morning." _

"_No—no I'll go get them." She shook her head sending water everywhere._

"_No I'm fine, really, we can get them in the morning right now I just want to get upstairs." She held out her hand to him. _

_Chucks eyes were drawn to her dripping hand like a magnet, "You don't have anything to sleep in." _

_She looked up, dare she ask him? "Well do you think I could borrow some of yours? Like Switzerland?"_

_He looked uneasily at her, for two people who weren't dating it wasn't exactly what he'd classify as normal; nonetheless he took her hand and smiled, "Yeah I think I have that old Stanford shirt you were so fond of."_

_She followed him upstairs hoping that perhaps borrowing a t-shirt wasn't the only thing they'd be repeating from their operation._

_It didn't take them long to make it inside his apartment and Chuck pointed out the bathroom again. "I'll find something for you to sleep in."_

_Sarah wasted no time in shedding her soaking wet clothes and slipping into his shower. She reveled in the hot water as it beat down on her warming to her very core. _

_When she finished she slipped back out of the shower and got dressed. _

"_Feeling better?" Chuck asked from his kitchen, he was eating an apple._

"_Immensely thanks." _

"_So…" His voice trailed off as he leaned against the counter. _

"_Yeah." She smiled self consciously. Neither knew how to really act around the other, their relationship wasn't exactly comfortable. _

"_Do you have any plans this week?"_

_She shook her head and took a seat on the other side of the counter. She gently removed the apple from his grasp and took a bite out of it, "Nope, you?"_

"_Not really, but there is one thing you should know if you're going to stay here."_

"_Oh?"_

"_My sister, Ellie, and Jill well they kind of think that you and I are uh—"_

"_Dating?"_

"_Yeah." He finished lamely._

_She leaned over the counter her face only a few centimeters away from his, "So if they showed up right now to find us like this they'd think that we were about to head into your bedroom and have mad passionate sex until the sun comes up?"_

_Chuck gulped, "Yeah."_

"_Are they wrong?" Her eyes smoldered as she barely restrained herself from leaping across the counter and starting round one on the kitchen floor. _

_She could see his reservations evaporating one by one, when a buzz came from across the room. Someone was downstairs wanting admittance to his apartment. Chuck moved over to the panel, "Yeah?"_

"_Its Jill, can you buzz me in?" Sarah groaned and banged her head on the countertop. It wasn't fair, she had been so close, so close to having Chuck and now it was all for naught. It was all that bitch Jill's fault. _

"_Yeah."_

_***_

"Relax Chuck I was rather busy myself." Sarah blushed and they lapsed into a silence for a moment before the door opened again and admitted the final four members.

MP took a seat at the head of the briefing table, with Clark at the opposite end of Mary Pat while Ding sat on Clark's right next to Sarah and Chuck, Casey took his seat on the left of MP to the right of Bryce. Chuck was surprised when he didn't flash on any of them.

"In the interest of protecting each of you all reports are to be filed using randomly selected code-names. In keeping with the theme of the project each of you was assigned a mythological code-name. Chuck you're Balder; Sarah, Athena. Agent Casey will be referred to as," she glanced down at the sheet, "Thor in reports. Ding, Heimdall, try to not mangle that pronunciation to much dear and John, Odin. Mr. Larkin you were assigned Ares."

"Well at least they aren't the worst code-name I've ever had."

"Wait why can't we just use each other's name?"

"Well during the operations you can, but when you send in your reports which are then stored in the vault we want to make sure that there is no mention of your actual name whatsoever. In the event someone got access to you files they'd be able to track you or your family down very quickly, once they have your family…"

Clark continued, "Given how high-profile this op is we can expect that sooner or later people are going to be looking into it, someone with a grudge against us might get their hands on those files so we need to make sure there's no way to tie us to the operation. All Intersect project code-names have some relation to mythology and these were just the ones we were randomly assigned. Don't worry during the actual mission we'll be using actual names, just when you write up the report you substitute Athena for Sarah."

Chuck nodded.

MP stood, "Your first mission will be in Rome, nothing major just something to get your feet wet. It's a simple meet between an art thief and a private collector, we want you to identify the buyer, arrest him, and figure out where he was getting his money from."

Clark passed out folders to all of them, "We'll go in three waves. First Agent Larkin and Major Casey, than Bartowski and Walker, Ding and I will bring up the rear."

"Anything else?" MP asked.

They all shook their heads.

"Okay I've got a meeting on the hill, good luck team, Mr. Clark."

"Casey, Bryce your flight leaves in six hours tickets are waiting for you at Air Italia's front desk. Charles, Sarah, you leave in twelve hours." Clark announced. "All other relevant information is in the packets I handed you. If you have no further questions, you're dismissed."

The CIA agents left while Casey stuck around for a minute with Clark. "Sir, with all due respect I'm not sure that having me clear a hotel for bugs is the best use of my abilities. I'm rather experienced with field operations."

"As am I."

"I've ran twenty plus wet ops."

"I think you have clearance to know that I've participated in over sixty. You married?"

"Nope, don't have time to live the American dream when I'm busy defending it. You sir?"

"Yeah, we have two daughters, one's marrying Ding."

***

**Chuck and Sarah's Apartment **

Chuck had been wearing a look of concern for the entire car ride back and as he shut off the car and they sat outside his building in silence it didn't disappear. "Sarah are you going to be okay?"

"What do you mean?" She hoped he wasn't talking about their relationship, she wasn't in the mood to be discussing that tonight.

"You know, flying, the uh nightmare." His voice dropped as he said it. He knew that she wouldn't appreciate a mention of some kind of weakness.

Sarah was torn; spending another night in Chuck's bed certainly wasn't something she'd complain about, but wouldn't she essentially be taking advantage of his good nature? "Would it be okay if I—uh spent the night with you again?"

Chuck smiled; the truth was he was growing accustomed to sharing a bed with the blonde agent and the one night they hadn't shared a bed had been a restless one. "It's no problem at all." He said as they made their way to the bedroom, both fell asleep with a dumb smile plastered on their face.

***

**Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean**

Sarah hadn't taken long to find a comfortable position on the plane; she found Chuck's shoulder to be a very warm and extremely comfortable pillow. Chuck was glad that she wasn't having any problems, so he simply stared out the window. He didn't really know what their relationship was at this point, the reasons he had given her for not wanting to date her didn't really seem relevant anymore, they were going to be spending a lot of time together, and he would be going on the missions with her so how could he complain about that?

Chuck knew that they'd have to clarify their relationship once they got settled into their hotel, but he wasn't entirely sure how much of their relationship was a cover and how much real anymore. He was even less sure of how much of their relationship he wanted to be a cover and how much he wanted to be real.

A/N- Yes I can do basic math, you'll have to wait and see why Chuck only spent one night alone. Now before any of you familiar with some of those mythologies go off the deep end, while the code-names are relevant they do not match up exactly. If you aren't familiar with them and don't get why someone might get a bit upset over them, don't worry about it I'm not requiring you to understand mythology to read this thing.

This is the final chapter of just briefings, I promise. I mean it this time, the next chapter will not just be briefings. Okay fine, I like to write briefing scenes, but the next one is going to involve something besides a briefing. This chapter was supposed to have some action, but adding the actions scenes would make it a bit long so those got shunted to chapter 8.

The title refers to Eisenhower's D-Day speech a snippet of which I copied below.

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have

striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The

hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.

In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on

other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war

machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of

Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Reviews are also, very greatly, appreciated. Even if they're about briefing scenes.


	8. The Red Rabbit

A/N- DLK this is what I call a Charah chapter.

Thanks to all of you who reviewed the previous chapter.

My knowledge of Italian is rudimentary at best, so if anyone has suggestions feel free to make 'em, granted most of this fic will remain in English.

In addition to not owning Chuck or Ryanverse I also don't own Hotel Ripa, I don't know if I need to actually mention that, but I don't and I have no idea who does own it.

Chapter 8- The Red Rabbit

"We're driving that?" Chuck asked incredulously staring at the Vespa.

"Yeah, they're common here, don't worry everyone else has a real car for when we need to go somewhere formal." She said taking the front seat.

"So why do we need this?"

"Young couple in love?" She offers hopefully, Sarah's not sure if she's talking about a cover or reality.

"I really have to get on that thing?"

She gave him a peck on the cheek, for the cover of course, and pulled him down onto the scooter behind her. "Don't worry I'll protect you." She said before starting off for their hotel. Their luggage would be delivered to the hotel by their local CIA liaison.

Chuck's screams were audible over the blaring of horns that Sarah caused as she maxed out the thing in rush hour traffic.

***

"Am I dead yet?" Chuck moaned when she finally stopped outside the hotel.

She slapped him on the arm playfully, "No silly, now come on we're here."

Chuck opened his eyes and looked at the hotel. Wasn't as nice as the one they had stayed at in Switzerland, but it certainly wasn't a dump. "Are we going to have any free time?"

"Yeah, you want to go visit some of the sites?"

"The Vatican at the very least."

She shot him a quick smile, well tonight we need to get settled in, but all tomorrow we're free although I'd really prefer to visit all the other churches and then see the Vatican the day after tomorrow."

"Any reason?"

Sarah blushed, "I'll spend the whole day there and we have a mission tomorrow night, so I don't want to cut the Vatican short." They approached the desk and Sarah went to slip into girlfriend mode, for the cover, only to realize that she already was in girlfriend mode, just for real. "We have a reservation, the Carmichaels."

"ID?"

Sarah and Chuck produced their cover IDs.

He grabbed them and began inspecting them. While Sarah waited for him to finish she rubbed her hand up and down Chuck's arm, and he slipped an arm around her bringing her even closer to him. When he placed a gentle kiss on the top of her forehead she practically turned to goo. She angled her head up to meet his gaze she hesitantly inched closer towards his lips.

"Here are your room keys." The front desk manager announced, Sarah's responded with a death glare that had made more than a few terrorists wet themselves. She wasn't happy that he had interrupted her moment with Chuck. Chuck grabbed the room keys and headed towards the elevators. Sarah cast one last hate filled look at the front desk manager.

Sarah slipped into the elevator again. "So are we going to meet Bryce and Casey?"

Sarah groaned to herself, they were the last two people Sarah wanted to be talking about. "Not today, we're going to try and have minimal no mission contact with them. We probably shouldn't even leave the hotel room all that much." She said with a wink as she leaned back up against him.

"Sarah?"

"We need to sell the cover, Chuck." Sarah said before raising her lips to his for the kiss she'd be denied at the check in desk.

He didn't respond for a moment and Sarah momentarily panicked, but when he returned the kiss she felt her knees turn to jello and collapsed against him. It didn't take long for her to lose all perception of reality and when the elevator finally reached its destination she didn't hear it ding. She decided that the amount of contact between them wasn't nearly enough, and jumped up wrapping her legs around his waist. When they finally broke apart Sarah couldn't help but smile. "mmmm Chuck," she moaned against his lips. "Room now." Chuck began trying to trail kisses down her jaw to her neck, but Sarah dropped back down to the floor and exited the elevator. She was horribly tempted to start another kiss, but her training told her that doing that would leave her vulnerable to attack and she knew that making out in the hallway would only delay getting him into bed. She practically sprinted to their room. Chuck was right on her heels. Sarah slipped the key card into its slot and wrenched the door open. Waiting on the bed was the most unwelcome sight she had ever seen. "BRYCE? What the fuck are you doing here? Get out this is mine and Chuck's room, and we need it."

"Duty calls Sarah, we just got word they're meeting to discuss the money. Clark and Ding will join us as soon as they can, but until then it's just us."

"Don't we have at least an hour?"

"Sorry Chuckster, you guys can get back to it as soon as we get finish."

Sarah glared at Bryce sure it wasn't his fault, but that didn't mean she didn't hate him for delivering the news. "Come on—"

Chuck placed a hand on her shoulder and not in the way she had been hoping he would touch her. "Sarah we go now, we'll have the entire night when we get back."

Sarah smiled at him, "And all morning." She just hoped the moment wasn't forgotten by the time they got back.

Bryce ignored them, "The new meet is in the Pantheon."

Sarah groaned, great just what she needed to be crawling around a church with dead people. Like that wouldn't kill the mood.

***

Chuck and Sarah sat in the van while Bryce and Casey infiltrated the building. They were also in charge of monitoring Clark and Ding's flight which hadn't even left the airport yet.

Bryce's hushed voice came in over the radio. "I hear something."

The camera resolved to show two figures standing in a dark alcove, "The amount we agreed upon is no longer sufficient." The seller said in beautiful Italian accented English.

"One million is more than generous." The buyer himself hadn't shown up, but had sent a representative, the man was quite easily identified as an American due to his New York accent.

"I lost five good men bringing it here, I need more." The seller said bitterly.

Chuck keyed his mike, "I need a shot of his face get closer."

One of the cameras began moving around while the conversation continued. Chuck wasn't flashing on any of their words though.

"One point five million, and that's my final offer." The buyer's representative said reluctantly.

"Deal."

"I'll have the rest wired after I'm in possession of it."

"Bryce, Casey what do we do?"

"Sarah take our car, we'll split up and tail them."

The camera feeds clearly showed that they were running out of the rotunda and heading for the exit. Sarah had disappeared out of the van door before he had a chance to ask her any questions. Chuck shifted up to the driver seat and looked for the two escaping targets.

Chuck spotted one of the bad guys leisurely exiting the building and getting into a silver Alfa Romeo 159. He took off after it while Sarah waited for the other car. "Chuck get back you can't stay right behind him." Bryce called over the radio. Sarah and Casey had gone off after the other car.

Chuck slowed down and let a few cars pass him, which wasn't easy on the narrow roman streets, but he managed to do it, without causing too much trouble. "Okay Chuck now you go." Bryce said when Chuck was about ten meters back.

Chuck continued on trying to keep a visual on the silver sports car for another ten minutes or so; Unfortunately he Chuck didn't actually understand a word of Italian so driving was a bit difficult. "Chuck take a right on the next available street." Bryce said as he got into position to take over surveillance from Chuck.

"Sarah how are you doing?" Chuck responded as he pulled over on the side of the road.

"He got into a cab—wait its slowing down." Silence reigned for a moment before Sarah started again, "Shit he's getting on the metro, no way I can find parking and follow him without blowing my cover."

"I'll follow him." Casey called over the radio.

"No, we're calling this off. Bryce I'm coming to replace you." Sarah said into her throat mike.

Sarah gunned her car and turned off the street, if Casey wanted to continue the tail he'd have to do it himself. Bryce meanwhile continued being to lead the tail; his Fiat Panda was far more inconspicuous than Chuck's Fiorino. "I'm closing in; I'll be ready to take over in two minutes Bryce."

When she got within range they switched, than Casey switched with Sarah, Chuck with Casey and so on and so forth.

***

**Outside L'Albergo Ripa**

"So this is where he's staying?"

"Yeah, now we'll watch him in shifts of two." Bryce announced.

Sarah knew her and Chuck's mood had already been killed, but she was hoping to salvage something from the night. "You and Casey for the first team and me and Chuck will take over in six hours?" She asked hopefully.

"No, I'll watch the Intersect, you and Bryce relieve us in six hours." Casey ordered.

Sarah wanted to protest, but one look from Casey told her that he wasn't going to give in tonight. Sarah walked over to Chuck, "Goodnight, Chuck." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek—anything more would probably result in a repeat of earlier—and returned to the car with Bryce.

Casey and Chuck remained in the van as an awkward silence descended.

"So why'd you join the NSA?" Chuck asked after a few minutes of staring at a monitor that showed their target wasn't moving.

Casey grunted.

"I joined the CIA after graduating from Stanford; originally they just wanted me to work on technical stuff, but then they had a mission in Switzerland and—"

Casey growled.

"We aren't going to talk much are we?"

"No." Casey said very obviously taking out his gun and beginning to clean it. They lapsed back into silence for the rest of the night as Chuck took the hint and returned to the video feeds.

***

Chuck and Sarah emerged from their limo, driven by Mr. Clark, with fake smiles plastered across their faces. Chuck's was far from convincing, but Sarah had managed to look like the happy girlfriend as they entered the cover for the meet. They hadn't gotten to actually speak to each other since their make out session in the elevator, so they were both still on edge. Clark and Ding had helped with the surveillance, but Chuck had needed to be tutored by Bryce on some of the basics of being a spy, not that the session seemed to have done all that much good, so she hadn't gotten to spend any time with him. "What's this thing for again?"

"I don't know, but we need to find out who's trying to smuggle the painting, just relax I'm here to protect you."

"Yeah, Chuck just try not to get her to hot and bothered."

"Bryce keep the comm. lines open, we don't need unnecessary chatter cluttering them up." Clark interjected, before Sarah could snap off a witty retort.

"Yes sir, sorry sir."

"Have I told you that you look absolutely ravishing in that dress?" Chuck said looking back at the floor length red dress she was wearing. The compliment turned her forced smile into a full blown, beaming, top-of-world, turned it up to eleven, megawatt smile. While Chuck had spent the day learning how to behave at a party Sarah had spent the day trying to find the perfect dress to impress Chuck with. She had nothing better to do, and it was an excuse to buy a fancy dress well above her pay level with the nice operational slush fund she had access to. So she'd spent the entire morning and afternoon after she got up searching for a dress that would show off her figure, without appearing slutty. It had taken her most of the day, but finally she had found it.

"Well maybe we can ravish—Chuck?" She noticed the telltale signs of a flash.

Chuck had finally gotten a good look at the guys face, despite having been under surveillance for almost the past day he had proved remarkably adept at keeping his face hidden. Of course most of that time he had spent locked in his hotel room probably for that very reason, refusing even let housekeeping into his room, but still it was a pretty good job.

Sarah sighed reluctantly; she had been hoping to at least get one dance with him before she had to do her job, but alas it wasn't meant to be.

"Bryce are you here yet? Chuck just flashed."

"Negative I'm en route, ETA twenty minutes we just hit traffic."

"Casey, Ding?" Sarah whispered into her mike.

Ding responded, "We're not dressed for that kind of party Walker."

Chuck finally snapped out of his flash, "That's the seller Giacome Rissolo."

"Bartowski, you and Agent Walker are to keep an eye on him until Agent Larkin arrives." Clark commanded, with a tone that even managed to convince Chuck of the futility of arguing. Sarah grabbed tow champagne flutes from the nearest waiter and handed one to Chuck, who knocked it back in one go.

"Chuck don't get drunk." She admonished for both professional and personal reasons. "Spot the buyer yet?"

"No and Bryce told me to drink a bit, said it'd help me loosen up." he said when he finished the flute.

"Well don't okay?" concern danced in her eyes as she tried to give his hand a reassuring squeeze.

"With you wearing that dress how can I say no?"

Sarah blushed, but managed to restrain herself from dragging him into the nearest closet and ravishing him until the party was over.

"Walker remember the dead drop in the bathroom." Clark said over the radio drawing Sarah out of her lusty haze.

"Chuck can you excuse me for a minute while I—I uh freshen up." She said for the benefit of any eavesdroppers. If they knew that she was really going to the bathroom to retrieve a set of knives and gun that she hadn't been able to sneak through a metal detector they would have freaked out. Sarah turned to a nearby waiter, "Dov'è il bagno?" He pointed across the room and she disappeared into the crowd.

Chuck wandered into the crowd for a minute before deciding to locate another champagne flute, they went down rather easily. He spotted a waiter with one left and angled to intercept him. Just as he reached out his hand to retrieve it, another feminine hand reached out.

"Oh I'm sorry—" the woman said as their hands each met around the glass.

"No, please you take it, I shouldn't be drinking too much, don't want to end up drunk."

"I doubt one champagne flute will get you drunk." She said as Chuck took a moment to look at her. She was wearing far more of a regal dress than Sarah was and her accent was certainly spoke of a moneyed upbringing, but what struck him most about her was her eyes. They were a beautiful green, emerald and danced with mischief.

"True. Charles Carmichael, Ms?" he said as he retrieved another one from a passing waiter.

"Carla Moreau." She said extending her hand.

"A pleasure to meet you Ms. Moreau." Chuck replied while kissing her hand.

"So what brings you to Italy, Mr. Carmichael?"

"The art mostly, I wanted to see some of the greatest renaissance and baroque masterpieces and of course you just have to see them in person." Chuck responded in his best Carmichael accent.

"What do you do Mr. Carmichael?" She asked taking a step closer to him, to anyone but Chuck her attentions would have been quite obvious.

Clark's voice appeared in Chuck's ear, calm, experienced, soothing almost. "You're senior software designer at Microsoft, currently taking an extended vacation to travel the world."

"I'm a senior software designer at Microsoft."

"You seem a bit young for that." Carla said leaning in even closer to him.

"I am, but don't tell them that." Chuck said with a laugh.

And that was the sight that Sarah was greeted to as she emerged from the crowd, Chuck and a new beautiful woman laughing together like old friends or a couple. Sarah promptly decided to remind Chuck of who he was with and marched straight at him and pulled him down for a searing kiss. He struggled to get away, but she didn't care if he was afraid of PDA's or anything, she wanted to show that whore that Chuck was taken. After a minute Chuck stopped struggling and returned the kiss. Sarah relaxed into it and didn't surrender his lips until her lungs demanded fresh oxygen. When they finally did break apart Chuck had only one thing to say, "Wow." Sarah smiled, a job well done, he was flummoxed enough now that he probably couldn't even remember that other tramps name. But as Sarah searched around, the woman had disappeared.

Sarah quickly glanced around checking for the seller again. "Chuck, see if you flash on the guy that the seller is talking to." Sarah covertly pointed to where Giacome was now standing.  
Chuck's flash hit a moment later, "That's Salvador Ruiz, he's linked to some stuff in the Balkans. Definitely a very bad guy." Chuck said as the pair began to head for the exit. "Bryce where are you? The exchange is going down now."

"I'm almost there, plus you have Chavez and Casey there."

Sarah turned to Chuck and grabbed his hand, "We're going to have to tail them until Bryce can take over." She dragged him across the room and through the doors the two art thieves had recently passed through. Fortunately the two targets didn't suspect a thing and left a clean trail up the stairs, to the top of the building and out onto the roof. Sarah hesitantly opened the door hoping that they had continued out further onto the roof and wouldn't notice the stairwell lighting or two new visitors onto the rooftop.

They had, these guys were clearly not concerned about being followed at all, which sent Sarah's senses tingling, did they have security watching their backs? Sarah shook her head, she didn't have time to second guess herself now she had to protect both herself and Chuck so she quickly slipped outside and found a dark corner for them both to hide in. There they watched the exchange.

Salvador had arranged for an associate to drop the briefcase off, and surely enough just after Chuck and Sarah got into their hiding spot the door opened again revealing Chuck's previous associate, Carla Moreau, carrying a metallic briefcase.

Sarah suppressed a triumphant smile, the slut that had dared to flirt with Chuck was working for the bad guys, her day just kept getting better and better.

"One-point million Euros as we agreed." Salvador said.

Carla handed over the suitcase, "Where's the painting?" Salvador asked as Giacome took possession of the money.

"Room 246, hotel Ripa." He held out his key card which the pair promptly took. "It was pleasure doing business with you." He said heading back to the stairwell.

The two buyers waited a minute before following after him.

Sarah and Chuck were the last two off the roof as they finished relaying everything to Mr. Clark.

"Ding, Casey you in position to take down the seller?"

"Right-O Mr. C." Ding replied cheerfully.

"Bryce you tail the buyers. Sarah, Charles I'll be there shortly we'll tail them with Larkin."

Silence reigned for half a dozen minutes before Ding came back on, "We've got him; he's sedated in the back of our car we'll send him out on the first plane in the morning."

Fortunately this time the buyers drove straight to the Ripa and then headed out of the city. Bryce managed to follow them to an isolated estate in the Roman countryside. All in all it was a textbook operation. Except now they needed to get access to the artwork and figure out what made it so valuable.

With the mission for the night they all began returning to their hotel from across the city. "Okay, Agent Larkin has pictures of the house and I've got the blue prints pulled up on my laptop, I've emailed them all to you so I want you to take a look at them and come up with the best plan to get one, some, or all of us into that estate. See you tomorrow team." Clark said before turning off his radio and tossing it on the table for the rest of the night. They were all dead tired and his, slowly, aging body was no exception.

***

**Chuck and Sarah's Room**

They had just walked in the door when Clark had come on with his final communiqué. Chuck watched as all the color drained out of Sarah's face from Clark's newest orders. He'd never seen her show such apprehension and fear before, "Sarah what's wrong?"

Sarah just shook her head no; he was the last person she wanted to discuss this with.

"Come on Sarah, you can trust me, what was wrong with what Clark said?"

"Chuck you don't want to know."

"I'm the Intersect Sarah; maybe I can help or know something that could make it better."

Sarah was about to spurn him again when she realized that he _could_ help her. "We need to date."

"What? How does that relate to Clark's orders, and don't tell me your reaction had nothing to do with those, because I know it did."

"He said he wants a plan to get at least one of us in that house." Sarah paused for a moment to brace herself, Chuck was going to hate what she was about to say. "Chuck Bryce is going to suggest that I seduce the guy, get him to take me back to his place, fuck him into a coma and then snoop around."

Chuck's eyes bulged, "Clark wouldn't make you do that would he?"

Sarah looked down at the floor, "It is the best way to get someone in there." She said sadly.

"You're willing to do this?" That sent Sarah into full-on panic mode, Chuck couldn't be mad at her, that wasn't fair!

"NO! That's the point, that's why we have to say we're dating even if we're not." Sarah was in such a frenzy she didn't catch Chuck's face fall as she said the second half of the sentence. "If the CIA knows your in a relationship they won't order you to sleep with a mark, I guess they're afraid of being slapped with a law suit or something. So as long as me and you say and pretend like we're dating, they can't order me to sleep with him or anyone else."

"But you just said we wouldn't be dating…" Sadness tainted Chuck's voice, but Sarah was too caught up in her own machinations to notice. Sure he had turned her down when she'd asked him out before, but things had changed since then and he had been hoping that they still had a chance. Sure the last girl he'd dated had shattered his heart into a million pieces, but Sarah seemed like she might be the girl to make his heart whole again.

"Well we'd make everyone think we were."

Chuck looked at her skeptically, "So we'd be cover dating for our job at the CIA, and cover dating from our job at the CIA so that we don't have to sleep with terrorists?"

Sarah nodded, she couldn't trust her voice as every time he said the word "cover dating" it felt like he was ramming a giant stalagmite through her heart.

It wasn't what Chuck wanted, but perhaps after a few months Sarah would warm back up to the idea of dating him and they could move forward.

It wasn't what Sarah wanted, but Chuck had always seemed to move slowly with their relationship and perhaps after a few months of "cover dating" they'd just start dating for real and forget about the cover.

"I guess we better come up with a plan to infiltrate the estate?" Chuck said sadly.

"Yeah," Sarah answered distantly.

Neither of their minds was focused on the roman estate, their thinking was monopolized entirely by trying to figure out the person sitting next to them.

A/N-Well judging by the reviews you guys didn't much like the previous chapter, I hope you enjoyed this one more. Please drop me a review, I really appreciate them.

Enough Charah DLK?


	9. The Red Rabbit Part II

_A/N- Yeah I'm really, really sorry about how long this took to write. Since it has been so long I'm not going to delay you further with the lengthy list of causes of delay, but if you really want I'll tell you why. _

_Previously in "The Company" Chuck, Bryce, Sarah, Ding, and Clark witnessed the selling of a piece of art to a buyer, Giacome, who they followed to his estate in the Roman countryside. Bryce was going to suggest sending Sarah to seduce Giacome in order to gain access to the house, in order to prevent this Chuck and Sarah have started a cover relationship between themselves to prevent the CIA from ordering her on any seduction missions._

* * *

Chapter 9- The Red Rabbit Part II

* * *

Chuck and Sarah awoke in their now familiar spooning position. She was more than willing to remain in his arms for the rest of the morning, but duty called and she needed to figure out how they were going to get access to the house.

She grabbed the pre-paid cell phone and checked the messages. She had one from Clark, he'd used that so they wouldn't have to risk actually visiting them.

_Larkin suggested you seduce mark; I'd rather not have you do that. What's your plan? _

She opened up her laptop and quickly created a rough outline for an infiltration plan. Unfortunately she didn't actually have access to the blueprints of the estate so it was rather vague, but she hoped that it could provide the basis for the actual op.

She sent him an email and climbed back into bed with a still sleeping Chuck to wait for the response.

It didn't take long, apparently Clark was waiting for her to suggest something.

_Not bad, you and Charles need to sure up your cover so enjoy the day. We'll brief you on the mission when you get back. Be back at twenty-three hundred. _

Sarah couldn't help but smile. An entire uninterrupted day with Chuck? Nothing else she'd rather do.

* * *

**One Month in the Future**

**Virginia, USA**

**June 15****th**** 2009**

"_By power vested in me by the state of Virginia, I know pronounce you husband and wife." Chuck barely noticed the priest, his attention was solely captivated by the beautiful, blonde, spy. His beautiful, blonde, spy. He knew he had made the right choice as her eyes connected with his, he felt that same electric connection that he did every other time their gazes would meet. _

* * *

**Present Time**

**Rome, Italy**

**May 3****rd**** 2009**

Sarah looked at herself in the mirror for the hundredth time. Trying to find something that would be appropriate for the Vatican, but make her look absolutely irresistible to Chuck wasn't the easiest task in the world.

"Hey Sarah you ready yet?"

She gave herself one last look, jeans and a long-sleeved blue blouse. "Yeah, you're ready?" She said solemnly.

"Yeah." Chuck called from the living room. He'd been surprised how somber Sarah had been all morning; he figured it might have something to do with where they were going, but he couldn't be entirely sure.

Sarah was attempting to be as amicable as possible toward Chuck, while attempting to avoid touching, talking, or thinking about him. It wasn't that she was angry with him, quite the opposite in fact, but her thoughts about Chuck were less than pure and thinking about how best to get Chuck into bed while preparing to visit one of the holiest places on Earth was rather embarrassing.

The blonde emerged from the bedroom with her emotionless mask on. She took one look at Chuck, "Uh Chuck?"

"Yes?" He quickly grew unsteady under her gaze.

"You have to go change. You need to dress appropriately."

"I am."

"No your not." She folded her arms across her chest.

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"Well the T-shirt for one and the shorts for second. You aren't allowed in if you're showing naked skin."

"But I'll die out there wearing pants!"

Sarah's demeanor immediately changed, "So your saying you won't go?" She asked biting her lower lip in anticipation.

"No, no I'll go get changed, just get ready to drive me to the hospital when I pass out from the heat." He said before heading into the bedroom. Sarah nervously laughed; she desperately wanted to break the tension that had quickly built up between them. He shut the door behind him, "You're not going to wait and finish the tour before taking me to the hospital are you?"

"Chuck, if you were hurt I'm not going wait for a tour."

"If you were hurt I wouldn't wait for red lights." Sarah stared at him, shocked at his admission.

A knock from the front door diverted Sarah's attention; she was brought back to the last someone at the door had interrupted a moment of theirs.

* * *

**Wednesday Night, Just after Jill's interruption.**

_As Jill walked in the door Sarah couldn't help but glare at her. Jill had just completely ruined Sarah's night. Her and Chuck had almost definitely been going somewhere, his bedroom most likely, but no Jill had to waltz in and interrupt everything. _

"_Jill what's wrong?" Chuck asked, concern evident in his voice. Sarah was happy to see that Jill looked terrible, Jill's eyes quite obvious indicated that she'd recently been crying. She was soaking wet and her entire body just radiated an aura of defeat. _

"_Me—me and Steve had a fight." She responded as Chuck rushed to her side and helped to support her._

_With Chuck by her side Jill collapsed against him, she'd barely been able to sustain herself long enough for the drive over to his apartment and now that she had a friend with her she felt safe enough to let someone else help her. _

"_About what?"_

"_Nothing—I mean, it was something, but argh. He can just be impossible sometimes."_

"_What'd he do?"_

"_He got a job offer and wanted to push the wedding back another month."_

"_And you didn't want to."_

"_We've been engaged almost two years already, I don't want to wait anymore."_

"_What's the job offer?"_

"_He'd have to do a major overhaul of the branch in Sydney."_

_Sarah decided to make herself known, "What does he do?"_

_Jill's head whipped around and noticed Sarah for the first time. Despite the tears that were threatening to spill out of her eyes she seemed to perk up a bit at the sight of Sarah in Chuck's apartment. "He's a senior manager at Pfizer." _

_Sarah nodded and Jill turned her attention back to Chuck. "He can't get it pushed back?"_

"_No, if he does that they'll give it to someone else." The dam holding Jill's tears back broke and she sagged against Chuck. He quickly brought her into a comforting hug, offering her a friendly shoulder to cry on. _

_Sarah fumed, first Jill interrupts their moment and then she's the one who got Chuck's attention. _

_After a few minutes of Jill sobbing into Chuck's T-shirt, Sarah standing around awkwardly, and Chuck trying his best to offer comfort Jill pulled back. _

"_Do you uh want to stay here for the night?"_

_Sarah smiled, she sensed an advantage. "You can sleep in the guest room Jill; really it would be no trouble at all." _

_Chuck's gaze sought Sarah's face, but she had disappeared into the kitchen. She reappeared a moment later with a glass of water for Jill. "Here Jill, drink this."_

_Sarah took a seat on the loveseat across from the couch Chuck and Jill inhabited. _

"_Can I get you anything else?"_

"_No, thank you." Jill said with a small smile as she looked at Sarah. _

"_You want to stay here tonight? You know cool off, and go back in the morning?"_

_Jill nodded, "I hope I'm not imposing." She waved her hand in Sarah's general direction. _

"_Don't worry about it." Sarah said quietly. She was considering the problems the new guest presented, namely that Chuck's apartment only had two beds. Sarah didn't think that Jill wasn't planning on sleeping with Chuck, she was engaged after all and she couldn't see Chuck ever cheating with or on someone. But that begged the question who would sleep where? _

"_I'll go make up the guest room for you, okay?" Chuck told Jill giving her one last supportive hug. He turned to Sarah and quietly whispered in her ear, "I'm sorry I guess we'll have to spend another night together, unless you wanted to sleep on the couch."_

"_No, no it's fine."_

_Chuck stood up and headed to the guest room._

_Sarah shifted over to the couch next to Jill. "Are you sure there's nothing I can get you?" It wasn't that Sarah \particularly liked Jill, but she didn't want to be mean to Chuck's friend. _

"_No I'll be fine." Jill paused for a moment, looking uneasy. After a minute or two of uncomfortable silence she uneasily looked behind her, "I'm sorry I didn't know you were here. I really didn't mean to uh interrupt your evening. I'm glad you two worked it out things, Chuck really can be thickheaded sometimes we're so happy you gave him a second change."_

_Sarah nodded silently, she wished it wasn't lie. "We?" _

"_Ellie and I." _

_Sarah had a burning desire to ask Jill everything she knew about Ellie, but refrained. She didn't need Chuck thinking she was trying to stalk her or something. "Do you think you'll be coming to the wedding?"_

"_I haven't given it much thought. When is it?"_

"_Next month."_

* * *

**Present Time**

**Rome, Italy**

**May 3****rd**** 2009**

Sarah checked the door only to find it was far more pleasant than the previous time she was interrupted. "Housekeeping" the maid called as she opened the door.

"Chuck, we've gotta go." She called heading towards the door. He emerged a moment later wearing appropriate clothing.

"I'm ready."

* * *

**12 Hours Later**

The team sat in the van armed and ready to initiate their op. The plan was for Bryce and Casey to take point with Ding and Clark providing Sniper support. "Wait what am I supposed to do?" Chuck questioned.

The two teams opened thrust the van door open, "Stay in the car."

"And Sarah?" Chuck asked as he stood at the van's threshold.

Sarah didn't move from her spot in the back of the van, "I'm staying with you to make sure you stay in the car." She answered dryly; She'd put on her professional face mask.

Chuck backed down away from the door and plumped down into his seat. "Well this should be an action filled evening."

Sarah gave him a quick sad smile, "We'll be fine, it'll be like watching a movie."

"Yeah with real people in danger."

Sarah nodded.

* * *

Bryce and Casey melted into the darkness of the trees that surrounded the estate as soon as they left the immediate vicinity of the van. Clark and Casey went in the opposite direction towards a hill.

As Casey and Bryce got closer to the estate Casey keyed his mic, "Intersect got any intel on this place for us?"

"It's not google, I have to see something to trigger a flash—"Chuck started to explain before his eyes coat a coat of arms on the window. The flash was quick,

_A Rattlesnake_

_Blueprints of the Estate_

_Purchase orders_

_Details for the security system_

_Guard deployment orders_

_A Rattlesnake_

"Okay yeah uh these guys are kind of insane. Motion sensors linked to flood lights, guards, it looks like some dogs, and they've brought a lot of guns."

"Good I like some gunplay," Casey retorted. Sarah shook her head in the van, she clearly wasn't happy about the idea of people shooting at them.

"Agent Casey you are to hold your fire unless fired upon, we want to keep this quiet."

"Yes sir." He responded quietly.

The radio went silent again as Casey and Bryce made their way inwards towards the estate, "Chuck can you deactivate the motion sensors? I think we should be able to take out the guards, but I don't want to need to dance around some motion sensors." Bryce said as him and Casey finished crawling towards the endge of the forest.

"I'll try." He said as he spun around in the van away from the camera feeds and faced the laptop set up in the van. Everyone waited quietly as Chuck tapped away at the computer attempting to figure a way to deactivate the security system. It didn't take him long before he managed to access the houses security system, apparently he'd been investing in physical security not cyber. "Okay I'm in, want false alarms or nothing at all?"  
"Just turn it all off." Clark ordered.

"Okay motion sensors are offline, I'm having trouble getting access to the rest of the system though."

"I think we can deal with some simple door locks. Eyes on anyone boss?" Bryce said as he and Casey began moving across the open grass.

"Don't see anyone in your range, most of the ones on your side of the house are doing close sweeps or are on the house, the one doing a far sweep just went around the back—wait, yeah they have one coming for you." Ding reported, and Chuck quickly checked the cameras, sure enough one guard had just appeared from the back of the house and was now going to intersect Bryce and Casey.

"Can we avoid him or should we take him out?"

"You can avoid him, and they won't notice his absence." Clark responded. Chuck visibly relaxed.

"What's the matter?" Sarah asked from across the van.

Chuck muted him radio, "Nothing, I'm just glad that he doesn't have to die I mean the guy isn't doing anything wrong he's just doing his job."

Sarah nodded, she hadn't considered it, she was used to killing people who were just doing their job. It was part of the business.

"Yes sir." Bryce said over the radio. He and Casey moved further into the estate, a protective shield of darkness shrouding them from discovery. As they neared the mansion itself, they spotted another patrol over guards, "Two guards twenty meters."

"We'll take them." Clark said again over the radio. Bryce and Casey watched the two guards, weapons pointed at them in case they needed to take quick action. After a couple of heartbeats both dropped simultaneously.

"Okay I'm tracking two vehicles who appear to be leaving the house, Chuck can you take a look at the license plates?" Sarah asked.

Chuck looked over from his monitors to hers; a quick look caused him to flash. "Let them go, we don't need to create more trouble for ourselves than we're already in." Clark ordered over the radio.

Sarah immediately climbed into the driver seat and moved the van further off the road.

"Sarah we should really follow those cars." Chuck called as soon as he emerged from the flash.

"We can't we have to take down this guy, but who owns them?"

"Their registered to our embassy."

"O_ur _embassy?" Sarah asked incredulously.

"Yeah."

"That sounds like it could be a problem, but right now we have more pressing concerns." Casey said over the radio, he really hated traitors, but he had a mission to complete before he could kill whoever was betraying the stars and stripes.

"You should have a straight shot into the house."

Sarah turned to Chuck, "Can you cut the sensors on that window." Sarah said pointing to the unlit window on the corner of the house that Bryce and Casey were approaching. "And standby to activate alarms at this window if they get detected."

Chuck nodded and turned back to his laptop that he'd used to hack into their system.

The vehicles passed by their van a moment later without incident. "Okay I'm alarms cut and I'm ready to trip the false ones." Chuck said to Sarah.

"We're in position."

"Thermals show the inside of the room to be clear, most of the ground floor is, but there's at least one room that's shielded. You're target looks like he's upstairs in his bedroom."

"Well we should be able to get the intel without trouble than." Bryce said.

"Where's the art?"

"He has an art gallery in the basement."

* * *

"We're moving." Bryce reported as he and Casey finished entering through the window and shut it behind them. They stacked up against the door silenced pistols at the ready. Bryce slowly opened the door. Light immediately spilled into their pitch black room. When his eyes adjusted he poked his head out and searched for any patrolling guards. Seeing none, he proceeded out into the hallway.

He signaled for Casey to cover the six as they proceeded deeper into the mansion. "Two in the next hallway heading your way." Chuck told them over the radio. Bryce quickly looked up and down the hallway. He knew they had two choices, hide or fight. He searched for a room to hide in and threw his weight into the nearest door, it didn't budge.

"Bryce those doors are all reinforced you're not going to breakdown any of them." Chuck said as Sarah laughed in the background.

"Let's go kid." Casey said as he turned the door handle and opened the door. Bryce picked himself off the floor and followed him into the room. They leveled their guns at the door in case they decided to start randomly checking the rooms. The sounds of the guards footsteps echoed down the hallway and reverberated, loudly, in Bryce's ears. He they grew closer, and closer, until they stopped right in front of the door.

"Take them?" Bryce whispered into his throat mike.

"Negative let them pass."

Casey growled, his finger itching to slip past the trigger guard and squeeze the trigger. His years of training staid his trigger finger though and he waited for his enemies to move on.

As the seconds ticked on beads of sweat started to form on their brows. Finally when the situation seemed untenable the footsteps resumed and the guards moved on. When the footsteps grew faint Casey and Bryce returned to the hallway.

"Nice job they probably noticed the dent you put in the door."

"Let's go." Bryce responded moving forward again.

"Watch out for anymore doors." Casey retorted.

"Bryce the stair case should be the third door on your right." Chuck called over the radio.

Bryce slipped through the door and descended into the darkness; the lights in the gallery were all turned off for the night. While that made it easier for them to slip in unnoticed, it made locating the specific paintings considerably more difficult.

They flicked on their flashlights and began going through the rows of paintings, sculptures, and other artwork.

Bryce was approaching the end of his row when he heard Sarah, "Wait Bryce go back Chuck's flashing on that painting."

"Okay that's the one. Bryce turn it over."

Bryce complied and saw a small envelope in the lower right hand corner of the painting. "What's that?" Chuck asked. Bryce retrieved the small envelope and opened it.

"Its empty." Bryce reported to Clark and Ding.

"We need to know what was in that envelope."

"How are we going to find out? It could be anything diamonds, drugs, information, anything."

"We'll have a nice little chat with him."

* * *

"What! No, I thought this was supposed to just be a recon op." Chuck blurted out when he heard Bryce's plan.

Sarah turned to him, "Chuck relax we'll capture him and bring him in."

"To where Sarah? He has some kind of connection to the embassy."

"To Langley, we'll take him back home."

Chuck sat back down, but didn't appear to have been pacified at all be her reassurances.

"Mr. Bartowski I'm going to need your hacking skills. I know I asked you to not activate any false alarms, but I'd like you to activate a few to cover Bryce and Casey's retreat with the package."

Chuck smiled, glad that Sarah had told him to prepare the false alarms earlier. "Ready. Bryce, Casey get into the stairwell again. I'll activate the alarms and he'll run right into you."

"Are we going to have company?"

"I…I don't know."

Casey growled into the mike.

* * *

"In position." Bryce said as they settled into the first floor landing of the stairwell. A moment later an alarm shot through the building. The emergency lighting activated and the sound of footsteps and shouting was unmistakable.

The door at the top of the stairs burst open and they heard several footsteps bounding down them.

Casey and Bryce waited on opposite sides of the landing. As soon as the first guard appeared around the corner he was hit with two bullets. He collapsed, dead, and fell down the remaining stairs. The man directly behind him didn't have time to react before he too was hit by a hail of gunfire. The third man quickly ducked back up the staircase. Casey wasted no time in pursuing him as he took the stairs three at a time and stepped over the bodies. Bryce proceeded with far less joyful enthusiasm as he made sure that no one was going to enter the stairwell and surprise them from behind.

"No—No, whatever you want JUST TAKE IT! Please NO—DON'T KILL ME." His pleas came to an abrupt stop as Casey slammed his pistol into Giacome's head knocking him out. When Bryce finally reached the landing to see Casey searching the top of the stairway for any more guards he quietly slipped out the syringe and injected it into the man's neck.

"You check him for weapons?"

"He's clean, probably doesn't even know how to shoot a gun." Casey said derisively.

"Intersect what's our exfil route?"

"Do you have C4 on you?"

"Always."

"Then head down to the basement, the southeast wall should be your best bet if you want to breakthrough and then you just have to get to the van."

"Yeah because with all these guards that won't be difficult."

"Most of them are distracted with trying to escape the building they think is on fire."

"They aren't sticking around?"

"Maybe they have an offsite rendezvous point, either way its good news." Clark said ending the discussion. A few minutes later they turned up at the van unharmed with Giacome slung across Casey's back.

* * *

In the van Sarah turned to Chuck covering her mike, "Chuck you know the cover thing?"

He covered his as well, "Yeah?"

"Now would be a really good time to sell it?"

"Oh—" he started to say before she occupied his lips with hers in an impromptu makeout session. She was determined not to lose her mind this time though and forget that she was still on a mission, so while their tongues dueled, she kept an eye on the monitoring feeds makings sure the pair weren't in danger.

* * *

"Come on Walker open the door this guy isn't exactly light." Casey grumbled as they stood outside the van's side door. Sarah opened the door a minute later looking rather disheveled.

Bryce smiled, "Nice job Sarah hooking up with Chuck mid-mission."

Casey adopted his "annoyed at the lack of professionalism" scowl and pushed past the blushing blonde agent.

Chuck barely noticed the return of Bryce and Casey, finally when Clark returned he snapped out of his shell-shocked daze and noticed the body laying on the floor of the van and his four other team members had returned. "So back to the hotel?" Clark nodded and the van headed back to the main road.

**

* * *

**

Clark's Hotel Room

"I thought this was supposed to be a simple op, art thief to private collector? Now we've got someone with connections to the Balkans, a US embassy official, and this guy." Clark said gesturing to the man tied to the chair behind him, still unconscious.

MP nodded halfway across the world, "Take the next transport out of there, we'll debrief you and assess the value of the Intersect."

The team nodded.

"Dismissed." She said and everyone, sans Clark, shuffled out of the room.

He turned to her on the video screen as soon as his door shut, "What's really going on MP?"

"We've got a problem John; we've got a big problem."

* * *

End of Chapter 9- The Red Rabbit Part II

A/N- I hope you enjoyed it, please drop of a review if you did, or didn't they really help me focus the story more. Once again sorry it took so very long to update. Thank you for those of you who kept reminding me to work on/update this story your continued interest was a big help in motivating me.


	10. The One with Jill's Wedding

A/N- Okay there is a reason this chapter took so long. I wanted to update on Christmas, and wasn't sure I'd have another chapter ready by then so…Yeah I held this one back from you guys. Sorry for the delay, but I like to update on certain dates (like my birthday and the day before I go away on vacation). So Happy Holidays everyone.

Chapter 10- The One with Jill's Wedding.

* * *

Chuck finished flipping through the magazine and put it back into the seat pocket in front of him. He hated the time between the plane landing and pulling up to the gate it was the most annoying time of any flight, the TV's were disabled, they wanted you to remain in your seat, and you just wanted to be done with it all. He turned to look at his traveling companion, Sarah had taken two sleeping pills as soon as she had gotten on the plane and was only just starting to wake up. "Sarah come on time to wake up we're back home."

Sarah mumbled something that Chuck couldn't hear.

"Come on Sarah, you can go sleep in your own bed when we get home."

"With you?" She mumbled, her warm breath tickling his ear.

"Yeah, I'll be there."

She smiled and woke up slightly. She stood in the aisle and collected their bags from the overhead compartment. As she did she missed the dark frown mar Chuck's features; he'd been struggling with his decision for the entire flight, he knew he couldn't keep their current fake relationship. Holding her, touching her, kissing her had resulted in an untenable situation that he needed to resolve before they started to work together again.

Chuck resolved to rectify it that night.

* * *

**Langley, Virginia**

MP sat at her desk in the wee hours of the morning, Chuck and Sarah had just arrived and she needed to debrief the Intersect. "Mr. Bartowski with the completion of your first operation we're going to be conducting a full review. Considering the relatively brief nature of the mission I imagine that it won't take long, but assuming it substantiates Mr. Clark's report we're going to give you some self-defense training. Nothing major, just enough so you can escape if you and Agent Walker are ever separated."

"How long is this going to take? My best friend is getting married next month and I'd kind of like to be there." Chuck blurted out before he realized who he was talking to.

"It won't take that long."

"Is there anything else?"

"Yes, what happens if I were to die in the field? What would you tell Ellie?"

MP shook her head, with someone who hadn't signed up for this kind of stuff she knew it was dangerous to discuss a possible death. After all it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility for him to get scared and back out, "Agent Walker is there to make sure that doesn't happen, you'll be safe, but in that unfortunate event we'd tell her that you died in the line of duty, pay out your life insurance policy and help her arrange the funeral. Oh and we're also going to be bumping you up a pay grade and giving you hazard pay."

"Hazard pay?"

"You are going to be in danger, it's only fair."

"Uh, director, what is the rest of the team going to be doing for the rest of the month?"

"Well Agent Walker will also have down time, but the rest of the team will continue to feed you intelligence and pursue leads in Italy. Clark wants to hunt down the connection between the target and our Embassy." She looked to see if Chuck had any further questions, when he didn't she hit her intercom, "Sarah could you come here please." She released the button and the door opened a moment later, "You can go home now Chuck."

MP didn't need to be a highly trained, experienced, and proven spy to catch the look the two exchanged, but being a top CIA agent certainly didn't hurt. "Oh and congratulations on your relationship."

Neither said anything, but as Chuck stood up Sarah rushed forward and planted a quick kiss on his lips. "Wait for me sweetie?"

He nodded and rushed out the door closing it with a soft click behind him.

"You can keep him safe?" Mary Pat noticed the strange reaction he had to kiss, and the awkward body posture between the two that just screamed that something was off, but she held her tongue.

Sarah nodded, "I'll die before I let someone hurt him."

"That's what I wanted to hear, so are you okay with not having any more proactive assignments? I know babysitting isn't your favorite thing even if its him."

"I'll live, like you said it's him."

* * *

The couple approached Chuck's apartment arguing about spies once again, "I'm telling you Sarah that was definitely like it is in the movies and books. Gun fights, car chases, stakeouts it was so awesome!"

"You really like that word, don't you?" Sarah asked with a smile.

Chuck smiled, "Well actually my brother-in-law loves it so much I call him Captain Awesome, he's just kind of gotten me to use it a lot."

As Chuck fumbled with the keys, again, Sarah slipped back into their last conversation about being a spy.

* * *

_**Thursday**_

_She smiled at him as he fumbled with his keys. "I'm serious Chuck; Splinter Cell is not an accurate representation of what spying is like."_

"_Please, you just want to find some excuse for when I kick your ass."_

_She slapped him playfully on the arm and couldn't help but smile to herself; when the CIA had trained her how to best avoid getting drunk while in a prolonged social engagement that required drinking they certainly hadn't imagined her using that talent to get her roommate intoxicated and more pliable. _

"_Chuck, I'm kind of tired, can we just watch a movie." _

_He nodded and shuffled towards the couch. "You pick it."_

_Sarah smiled and just grabbed the first DVD she could, watching the movie was the last thing on her mind. She quickly popped it in and took up a position on the couch next to Chuck. She could tell he was tired when he mumbled something about Episode One being an abomination, she didn't know much about him, but she could tell it was some sort of Sci Fi reference. _

_It didn't take long for both of them to succumb to sleep, Sarah was out, fortunately, before Jar Jar showed up for the first time. _

_Sarah woke up in the morning her head in Chuck's lap and his hands in her hair. Greatest day of my life she thought to herself smiling._

* * *

She was struck that now even though he'd seen what the spy world was like, he still thought it was like spy movies, she didn't think there were almost any similarities between the two.

As they finally got into the apartment, Chuck made a beeline for the answering machine. A theme quickly arose in the messages as Jill called to remind him of dates, information, and generally keep him apprised of the wedding situation.

Chuck looked over at Sarah awkwardly, "So uh…"

"Yeah, I guess it'd be pretty weird if I didn't go with you to that huh?"

"Yeah, but you don't have to if you don't want to. I mean you don't really know Jill."

Sarah tried to not look to sad; she certainly didn't want him going there alone. With her luck he'd end up falling in love with some other tramp and break up their fake-maybe-not-so-fake relationship. "Oh no I'd be happy to go, unless you don't want me to."

Chuck sighed knowing what he had to do, "I'd be kind of uncomfortable bringing a cover-girlfriend to my friend's wedding."

"I see." Sarah with barely restrained anger. She felt the blood pumping through her veins and was ready for some action. She began thinking about how best to get some, she figured the gym at Langley would be her best bet; she'd find a sparring partner and beat them until she forgot about Chuck.

Sarah? Sarah? Hey you okay? I know I'm babbling and I might not have phrased it right, but what do you say?" Chuck said waving his hands in front of face to get her attention.

Sarah realized that he had continued speaking after breaking up with her. "What were you saying? I kind of zoned out." She said, making no attempt to hide the malice in her voice.

"I uh…I uh asked if you'd be willing to—uh—go to the wedding with me as my date, my real date."

She hit him, hard. Sarah hit him with such force that he was forced back into the couch, flipped over, and tumbled down onto the other side of the couch landing in a heap between the table and the couch. "You jerk!"

Chuck recovered quickly enough, "I'm sorry I thought—I thought that you _wanted _this." He said wildly gesturing between the two with his hands.

"I did," she took a breath and waited to calm down. When she continued her voice had lost its edge, "I do, but do you have any idea what you just made me think you were doing? I thought you were breaking up with me _again._"

"Oh no Sarah you're going to have to put up with me for awhile now."

Sarah let out a nervous laugh and Chuck quickly joined in, but when that ended they were laughed staring at each other, alone, with neither of them knowing where the relationship really stood.

"So you'll come to the wedding as my real honest-to-god girlfriend?"

Sarah gave him a small smile, "Yeah, but I should warn you I've never been in a real relationship before."

"I'm sure we can figure it out."

"So what is it that normal couples do at night when they're staying in the same apartment?" She said with a naughty smile as her eyes, very obviously, shifted towards the bedroom.

"Well normally we'd—"

"Chuck shut up." Sarah ordered as she moved around the other side of the couch and initiated their newest first kiss.

* * *

**Virginia, USA**

**June 15****th**** 2009**

"Sarah can I steal you away from him for a moment?" Jill asked.

They exchanged a look and Sarah smiled before standing up and following Jill.

"You two are getting pretty serious huh?" Jill said as she headed back to her waiting room.

"Yeah." Sarah answered, slightly unnerved by the whole thing.

They finally arrived at Jill's inner sanctum, which was strangely vacant. "I told them I needed a few minutes alone," Jill said by way of explanation.

"What do you want?" Sarah said while she slowly began adopting a defensive stance, she wanted to be ready if Jill attacked her. She may have been Chuck's friend, but Sarah still didn't trust her.

Jill's voice took on a dangerous tone, and her eyes burned, "I want you to promise me that you won't hurt him. Promise me you aren't just playing with him, that this is real, that you won't break his heart."

Sarah met Jill's gaze, "I promise."

"Good, Chuck means a lot to me and you, well your good for him. He does more than work and play video games with Morgan nowadays, and I'm glad you got him beyond that. The next time both of us are in town we should do something together."

Sarah was stunned, she knew that their relationship had thawed, and their conversation when she had stayed over that one night had been nice, but she never expected Jill to offer to be friends. "I'd like that."

Sarah quickly made her way towards the exit and Jill let her go. Sarah wasted no time in getting back to Chuck, she certainly didn't have anyone else to talk to. But just as she was reentering the chapel and about to rejoin him a brunette grabbed her arm and held her back.

Sarah's first instinct was to fight back, but before she had a chance to take out the offending person her mind supplied the crucial identity of the person: Ellie.

"Look I know Jill talked to you, but you guys seemed kind of uh unfriendly towards each other, so I just wanted to talk to my brother's new girlfriend." The elder sibling's voice was far softer than Jill's and she simple seemed much nicer than the bride.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Chuck talks about you all the time." Sarah supplied with a smile.

"You know when I heard my brother had a new girlfriend I figured it was going to be some nerdy CIA analyst, but you—you certainly aren't that."

"Well I'm doing my best to keep him away from any nerdy girls." Sarah said with a laugh, she wasn't entirely sure if Ellie meant that as a compliment or something else.

"Well I thank you, if you ever want any help dragging him away from Call of Duty just call me I'll be more than happy to help." They both shared a laugh and Sarah began to feel at ease.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Take care of him for me will you? I don't know much, but I know he's doing dangerous stuff now and I I don't know what I'd do if he didn't come back."

"I wouldn't either. I give you my word that I'll do my best to keep him safe."

Ellie nodded seemingly satisfied, "Well I'll see you after the ceremony, good luck Sarah." Ellie said as she disappeared back towards where Sarah had left Jill.

Sarah turned and headed back into the church where Chuck was waiting. "What did Jill want?" Chuck asked after she sat down.

"She wanted me to promise to never hurt you."

"Oh."

"And Ellie's worried about you."

Chuck nodded. They sat there discussing the guests as they filtered in for a few minutes until finally the ceremony arrived.

* * *

"By power vested in me by the state of Virginia, I know pronounce you husband and wife." Chuck barely noticed the priest, his attention was solely captivated by the beautiful, blonde, spy. His beautiful, blonde, spy. He knew he had made the right choice as her eyes connected with his, he felt that same electric connection that he did every other time their gazes would meet; Chuck's face erupted in a full smile, the kind he saved for those special moments that he wanted to treasure forever.

Sarah returned it, as happy as she was for the bride and groom she was far happier about the man sitting next to her. She suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to tell him that she loved him; of course this wasn't practical not only was there a wedding going on, but she also didn't want to scare him off and most of all she had her own commitment to deal with. She didn't know what brought it on, maybe it was the romance of the moment, or their new relationship, or maybe promising Ellie to protect him, whatever the reason she was suddenly sure of her emotions, she just wasn't sure about saying them.

* * *

Sarah plopped back down in her chair with a happy smile on her face from either the liquor or dancing with Chuck. When he collapsed into the chair next to her she crawled over to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. "That was fun."

"That was not fun, I looked like an idiot."

"You looked adorable."

Chuck smiled at her, "Your just saying that to me so I'll sleep with you."

"Come on I think Ellie wants us to go over and talk to her."

"Oh?"

"Yes, is that her husband with her?"

"Yes, Devon also known as Captain Awesome." Chuck said as they crossed around the dance floor.

"And he's a surgeon to right?"

"Yeah."

As they approached the table Ellie and Awesome were at Sarah put on her best smile, she felt slightly guilty about using her spy training, but she wanted to make a good impression. "Hi I'm Sarah."

"Devon Woodcomb, pleasure to meet the Chuckster's better half."

"Oh I don't know about that, he's pretty good himself." Sarah said with her usual charming smile.

"It was a beautiful ceremony wasn't it?" Ellie asked Sarah.

"Yeah it was." Sarah and Chuck answered in unison.

"Ellie I know I haven't gotten much of a chance to see you in the past few weeks, but I thought you should know that I'm leaving on Monday."

"We are?" Sarah asked surprised, they had at least another week of vacation after that.

"Yeah we're going on vacation."

Sarah just stared, mouth agape, at him. Vacation? That was something she wasn't expecting.

"We are?"

"Yup, I booked us a room in Maui for the rest of our time off."

Sarah didn't know how to really react; she looked at him with a mixture of love and shock. He'd just managed to completely surprise her, a trained spy.

"Congratulations, but I'm going to miss you guys. Sarah we're going to have to do something before you leave."

Sarah nodded in assent as Chuck slipped his arm around her.

* * *

**Roma, Italia**

**Giugno Quindici **

"Why'd you do it?" The cold voice called out from the darkness. The Ambassador stopped dead in his tracks. There was something about the voice, a simple emotionless tone that told him he was in grave danger.

"Do what?" He asked feigning ignorance.

"Sell the codes." The assassin answered.

"I needed the money." The ambassador explained as he poured himself a drink from the bar.

"You betrayed your country."

"And now you're here to kill me." He replied flatly.

"No, I'm here to take you in."

What little color remained drained out of the officials face. "I'm an American citizen you can't!"

"You don't have many options here." Clark said.

"What do you want?"

"Answers." Clark's voice managed to somehow become colder when he said that.

"To what? I told you why I did it."

"What's Fulcrum?"

The ambassador smiled. "Your bosses, CIA." He declared before grabbing a pill off the bar and swallowing it.

"Placebo, I replaced your cyanide." Clark said before crossing the room in a few strides and knocking out his target. When he finished he signaled for the rest of his team to come up and retrieve the body. He took out his phone and dialed MP's number, "Whatever Fulcrum is, it's real. I'm bringing him in now."

"Good work. Mr. Bartowski is almost done with his training."

* * *

**Virginia, USA**

**Dulles International Airport**

**June 21****st**

Chuck and Sarah approached the gate read for a long flight. As they went to collect their tickets they noticed an employee approaching them. "Excuse me Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael?"

"Yes?" Sarah said instinctively.

"I was told to give you the following message: Cancel your connection, we'll give you the jet for the final leg. Does that make sense?"

They both groaned, "Yes."

Sarah turned to Chuck, "Looks like Duty calls, but we are definitely going to have this vacation someday."

"Yeah, I wonder what could be happening in LA?"

"No idea."

* * *

A/N- Ok so this is your Christmas present (or belated Solstice present if you don't celebrate Christmas), so how about some reviews for mine?

And I think we're finally done with the flashbacks.

Well I couldn't think of a Clancy theme for this chapter name so I decided on a Friends one.


	11. Honor the Fallen

Well we had the Chuck season premier, now for my next update.

A/N- With the amount of time these guys spend on airplanes I'm starting to feel like I should write a fic for Up in the Air, which btw is an amazing movie.

Chapter 11- Honor the Fallen

**Castle Base**

**Los Angeles **

"Mr. Bartowski glad you could join us." Clark said as Chuck and his protector entered into the underground base.

"Wait the CIA has a base under a yogurt shop?"

"Orange Orange is just a front, like Universal Exports from the Bond movies." Bryce explained.  
Chuck and Sarah descended the stairs and sat next to each other, "Where are Casey and Ding?"

"Ding is out getting lunch; Casey is with the prisoner, again."

"What's he getting?"

"Some hot dogs from Pink's."

Sarah smiled, "Enough for us?"

"Yeah."

"Wait, what's Pink's?"

They all stared at him. "Only like the best hot dog place in the world," Bryce eventually told Chuck.

"Okay, so what's with the prisoner? Did you crack the case?" Chuck asked.

"Yeah, we hauled him in, didn't take much to get the basic information out of him, but after that he clamed up."

"What did you get out of him?" Sarah asked.

"Fulcrum." Clark said.

Chuck flashed.

_CIA Seal_

_A map of Columbia_

_Special Access Program_

_Termination Orders_

_Cancellation of funding_

_Operation: Reciprocity_

_The Fifth Freedom_

_CIA Seal_

"Chuck, you okay?" Chuck came back to reality to find Sarah fawning over him, and himself on the ground staring up at the ceiling.

"Yeah that was just a big flash."

"What was Fulcrum?"

"CIA Program that grew out of Operation: Showboat." The word Showboat caused Ding and Clark to share an uneasy look.

As Chuck said that he flashed again:

_Columbia_

_Drug Wars_

_Operations: Caper, Showboat, Eagle Eye, Reciprocity _

_Ding's personnel file_

_John Clark's photo_

_The final report_

"You invaded Columbia! And you! You almost left them to die!"

They both nodded solemnly, they had no response to the charges.

"What—What happened to Cutter?" Chuck asked nervously, he didn't know what answer he wanted to hear. The man obviously deserved some form of punishment, but he was asking the original CIA assassin.

"He ran in front of a bus after I confronted him. Bastards burning in hell now." Clark said coldly.

"Damn straight Mr. C."

"So what's Fulcrum?"

"It was a CIA program that was supposed to protect America by any means necessary. It was supposed to be a temporary stopgap, only it didn't stop."

"Why didn't they just cut off the funding?" Sarah asked.

"They tried, Fulcrum found alternate revenue sources."

Silence descended across the room as they considered what Chuck had just told them. "So these guys are rogue CIA?"

"Yeah." They once again sat there staring at each other unsure of what their next move should be. After a few minutes they heard the interrogation room door opening.

Casey walked back into the main conference room. "Find out what you can from him," he said pointing back to where he came from.

"Who? Me?" Chuck asked.

"No moron, your _girlfriend_."

"Come on Chuck." She said grabbing his hand, "You can watch from the observation room, let me know if you flash on anything." Chuck followed her out.

***

**Interrogation Room, Castle Base**

**Los Angeles **

Sarah stood outside the door. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and steadied herself for the coming interrogation. She grabbed the door handle, opened her eyes, and wrenched it open. She moved with purpose into the room and sat down in the chair opposite the prisoner. He was in pretty bad shape, Casey had clearly been using more than verbal abuse in the last session. His left eye was nearly swollen shut and his lip was covered in dried blood.

"So, John you've been a very naughty boy."

He remained silent.

"You know your career is dead, right? You might be able to salvage some of it if you helped us out."

"Blondie if I helped you I'd have bigger problems than my career." He said with disgust.

"We can protect you."

"Really you think, you can protect me? You don't have any idea of who's even working for us."

"Oh?"

"Your team consists of how many people?" he said with a wicked smile.

Sarah looked at him with suspicion, "Five."

"So the team that brought me in plus you?"

Sarah nodded.

"We already have one man on your team; you really think you can protect me? If I started talking right now I probably wouldn't make it out of this room alive." The former ambassador said as his smile grew.

Sarah turned around and glanced at the one-way mirror. It only took her another moment before she headed to the door. Chuck unlocked it, and she sighed in relief when she saw him again. Then she realized that he very well could be Fulcrum. John didn't know about Chuck, he hadn't ever seen him and Sarah hadn't included him in the team member total.

"So one of them is Fulcrum?" Chuck asked.

"So he claims."

"Does he have a reason to lie?"

"Cause dissension in the team, try and get us to take down one or our own."

"Or he could be telling the truth."

"Yeah." Chuck opened the door to the observation room and waited for Sarah to enter.

Sarah walked in and took a seat near the rooms computer. You didn't happen to flash on anything did you?"

"Nothing important, no; just his personnel records."

They sat there pondering what to do for a minute. It wasn't an easy prospect to begin a spy hunt for someone on your team, someone you trusted with your life.

Chuck spoke first, "So we need to find out who the Fulcrum agent is."

Sarah nodded, "I'll call Director Foley we're going to need her help."

"Does your cell work here?"

Sarah shook her head, follow my lead. She said dragging him back towards the conference room, and exit, by his hand.

Sarah put on her best innocent girl expression, and put on a gently smile, "Uh Mr. Clark? Do you think me and Chuck could have the afternoon off? We are kind of jet lagged and that guy isn't saying anything to us either. Chuck didn't flash either."

Clark looked at her suspiciously; he could tell something was up, but the look she was giving him told him that whatever it was was more important than some afternoon delight. "Fine."

Neither relaxed until they were in the safety of her rented Porsche. Sarah immediately started for their hotel.

***

**Chuck and Sarah's Hotel Lobby**

**Los Angeles**

"Yes, Director I understand, but can we really trust the Intersect with someone who could be Fulcrum?"

"Agent Walker I have known Mr. Clark for my entire career, and Mr. Chavez for his entire career and I will personally vouch for their trustworthiness. I know General Beckman will do the same for Colonel Casey, can you vouch for Agent Larkin?"

Sarah bit her lip in concentration. "Can we trust Beckman? Her and Casey could both be Fulcrum."

"I'll look into it, but I think we can trust someone who has given everything she has to protect her country. I'll give you permission to look into this, but I don't think we have a traitor on the Intersect team."

"What are your orders?"

"Take the day, we'll have a packet for Chuck to review and I'll have my team working through the night to clear everyone. I don't expect that it'll take too long to confirm everyone is clean." MP said before hanging up.

Sarah sat down on the bed next to Chuck. They sat there in silence for several minutes before Chuck moved further up on the bed and placed his hands on her shoulders. She closed her eyes and bowed her head as he began giving her a shoulder massage.

"You seem tense." He said with an unseen smile.

"One of our team members is a Fulcrum agent, hell they might all be Fulcrum. Chuck, you're the only one I can trust." She sat sinking into his strong hands. She felt the stress just oozing out of her muscles and she melted into him.

"How do you know you can trust me?" Chuck asked idly.

Sarah's head shot up, her eyes open again, and her muscles immediately filled with tension again. She quickly glanced around the room for her gun before she heard his laugh.

"Relax Sarah I'm not." She spun around and punched him in the arm. "Ouch!"

"Don't scare me like that ever again!"

Chuck rubbed his arm and after a minute they calmed down again, "So what did she say?"

Sarah rolled her shoulders indicating for him to resume the massage, "She said that we should sit tight for the rest of the day and she'd have something for you to review in the morning. She doesn't think the threat is real, apparently they dealt with something similar with some terrorists a few years back."

"So we've got the rest of the day to ourselves?"

"Yeah. You thinking what I'm thinking?"

Chuck just smiled.

"I'll get the massage oils." Sarah said happily jumping off the bed.

"Wait—What?"

Sarah let out a short happy laugh, "What? Like you said I'm tense and in need of a massage. Why what did you think I had in mind?" She said with a wink.

***

"You just let them go? We need the Intersect interrogating the prisoner not getting laid!" Bryce bemoaned as soon as Chuck and Sarah left.

"They did get something out of him; I presume they're going to check it out now." Clark responded calmly.

"How do you know?" Bryce barked back.

Clark just stared at him. "So anyone else want take a crack at the prisoner? Or should we break out some cards?"

They all exchanged glances, Casey was the one who usually wanted to interrogate the prisoner, but even he seemed reticent about returning to the interrogation room.

"Cards it is." Clark said before dealing the cards out.

***

Sarah lay splayed across Chuck's chest happily running her fingers along his arms and hair. "Sarah?"

"Hmmm?" She said happily.

"Why did you join the CIA?"

Sarah picked her head of his chest and met his thoughtful gaze. "I…It's not—Why did you join?"

Chuck shrugged, "I'd graduated from Stanford and didn't really know what to do. So I was working in the Buy More while I tried to get a real job at a game design company, I was hoping to get a job at Infinity Ward actually, well this strange guy walks into the Buy More and asks me if I could fix his computer. When I finished he handed me his card and told me to call him when I had some free time."

Sarah moved up, resting her head on his shoulder now, "And you called him."

"Well his card said Central Intelligence Agency on it, how could I not?"

Sarah's voice dropped to a soft whisper, "and then he asked you to serve your country."

"And then he asked me to serve my country." Chuck repeated softly in her ear.

"You've saved my life, you know that right?"

Chuck just shrugged again, "I was just doing my job, but I'm certainly glad you're still alive."

Sarah let her eyes slip shut again, they still had time before they had to get up.

"But you never told me why you joined."

Sarah stiffened. "It's not a nice story like yours."

He only responded wrapping his arms around her and holding her close to him.

"Revenge." His arms immediately went slack around her causing Sarah to panic. As she felt his hands on her, pushing her away, her breath caught in her throat. She couldn't breathe, he was leaving her over one word. She couldn't bear to look at him, to see the disgust that she was sure had to be in his eyes, but Chuck had other ideas as he forced her to look at him.

"What happened?" He said softly. She collapsed against him smiling, he wasn't breaking up with her, he had been trying to show her that he forgave her. Two words were all it had taken to calm her. She let out a self-conscious laugh when she realized how silly she was being.

"My father was killed, I wanted revenge and the CIA offered me that."

"How did he?"

"You remember in Langley? The stars on the wall?

Chuck remembered. Nearly 100 stars adorned that wall to CIA officers who had fallen in the line of duty. Chuck worked every day to make sure they never ended up there because they lacked a gadget of some sort and now he hoped to never find Sarah on that wall.

"My father is one of them. Mary Pat is the one who told me, although she wasn't the director back then. When she told me what happened I—well I just wanted to hurt the men responsible. When I finished training she made sure I was assigned to tracking the same organization that my father was killed by."

"What happened?"

"I found out who was responsible. I killed them." She said with trepidation. Sarah didn't want him to that she was some sort of monster.

"What about your mother?"

"She was with him when he died. They brought down a plane."

Chuck placed a soft kiss on her temple. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Sarah nuzzled into his neck, she was done talking. Just as she was about to start another round she heard her phone start ringing. Sarah groaned, "Stay right there, don't move, don't breathe, just stay right there this won't take long." He gave her a smile and relaxed back into the pillow with a smile.

Sarah rolled off him and moved over to collect her phone. "Walker here." She said coldly into the device.

"Put Charles on." Sarah tossed the phone over to him on the bed before jumping on the bed herself.

Chuck grabbed the phone with a puzzled look on his face, "Who is this and how did you know I would be here?"

"Charles its five in the morning, where else would you be then in her bed?"

Sarah saw blush creep up Chuck's neck, "Uh…What is it you were calling for?"

"We checked out the team let me know if any of the following words cause you to flash? Salamander, Grackus, Seaborg, Pinata."

Chuck flashed then again, and again. For each word he flashed. "Everyone's clean."

"Good, tell Agent Walker I said so. Goodbye Chuck." Mary Pat said before hanging up.

Chuck turned to Sarah who was sitting, naked, on the bed next to him. "Everyone's clean."

Sarah nodded, "Well I guess we have to go talk to Clark then." She climbed off the bed and headed over to the closet.

***

Sarah walked in on the interrogation room again with a small vanilla folder, this time she was smiling. There were two reasons for her smile first she was quite happy about the plan and second the mission called for it. She sat down and kept the folder closed. "We got your agent on the team"

John smiled, "Who do you think it was? I highly doubt your incompetent CIA could manage to figure out who it was."

"Bryce Larkin." Sarah said with a smile, "Wasn't difficult when half the team that brought you in practically built the CIA."

John smiled, "That's exactly what makes you so incompetent, you're weak, sentimental, and far too quick to trust. Fulcrum is willing to do what is necessary to defend this nation, we're willing to sacrifice for this country unlike you cowards. You people are pat—"

***

"Sarah! Sarah! What the hell?" Chuck said as he burst into the room.

"What?" Sarah said before looking down at the ground, John Vasconti lay at her feet, writhing in pain. Sarah looked puzzled for a minute. She didn't remember attacking him or anything. "I—I," she started before remembering what he had said. "My father gave the CIA everything he had, don't you dare disrespect his sacrifice you selfish bastard." She ended her statement with a stiff kick to the face. The former ambassador stilled.

"You really shouldn't do that." Bryce said from the observation room.

Sarah spun around and stared at the one-way mirror, "Why the hell not? He's not going to give us anything from simple interrogation."

"Well I doubt the President is going to let us torture one of his ambassadors."

Clark, unseen by everyone else, smiled. "I'll deal with further arrangements. In the mean time Chuck you mentioned something about a Fulcrum operation in Brussels?"

Chuck turned around, "Yeah something to do with NATO. I don't know any specific operational plans though, just some fake passports."

"Casey take command, get the team set up in Brussels, Ding and I will deal with Mr. Vasconti."

Casey nodded.

***

**36,000 Feet (12,000 meters) Over Germany en route to Brussels, Belgium**

"Drink sir?" The stewardess asked.

"No, thank you." The agent replied annoyed at the interruption. He turned his attention back on his laptop. He didn't have much time before the buyer wanted the program and he was looking forward to this payday. Another couple like it and he'd be able to buy an island somewhere and relax for the rest of his life. Fortunately the program was relatively simple; unfortunately he wasn't a computer programmer by profession. Normally the Ring would provide him with a partner who could deal with the menial task his cover involved, but he was being lent out to Fulcrum and they weren't as well equipped as the Ring.

He noticed that his assistant appeared to be stirring, "Honey do we have any meetings scheduled for today?" He whispered in her ear more out of habit than a need for secrecy.

"No I know you hate first day meetings." Rob smiled. That would give him more than enough time to meeting with his Fulcrum contact, pass off the program, and get ready for the rest of his, rather minor, role in the operation. It would have been a very displeasing task were it not for the city, one of the few European cities he still enjoyed visiting. Most of the others were tainted with the memories of double-crossed friends, dead enemies, and blown ops.

His assistant turned to face him, now fully awake. "Do you think we can go to Paris after we finish up here? You don't have another meeting scheduled till the end of the month."

"You might be able to persuade me."

Her eyes twinkled, "Oh? And how might I persuade you Mr. Hayes?"

"You always find a way Carina." He replied with a smirk.

*******

"Mr. President have you ever heard of Fulcrum?" The CIA DDO asked.

"No, who are they?"

"We don't know sir, all we know is they're dangerous and we have a hard time finding them. I'd like to have your permission to run an op to hunt them down."

"You want a pardon for your actions in doing so." Ryan concluded.

MP looked at the floor, "yes sir."

"Tell my secretary how many and I'll sign them first thing in the morning, I'll leave them blank fill them out for whatever you need."

"Thank you sir."

A/N- I've been having them jump around a lot, do you guys mind that or?


	12. The Best Laid Plans

A/N- Ok so I bet you'd like a reason for why this took so long? Well you'll have to read the chapter to get to it, because I'm not wasting your time with that explanation when you could be reading this long, long, long overdue update.

Chapter 12- The best laid plans…

"Here's your program, do you have my money?"

The junior Fulcrum agent handed him an attaché case. "We encountered a slight delay in procuring the funds you requested. We have half, but one of our assets went dark and never delivered the money. We are tapping into one of our reserve funds, but that will take a couple of hours." The Fulcrum agent replied handing over the money. His voice shook with trepidation, the Ring was scary in general, this guy just seemed insane.

"You paid me half; you've got half my participation, the program. Pay me the rest or I'm not helping your op." He said standing up and heading towards the door.

"I'll have it by tomorrow."

"See that you do." Hayes said with a flash of his eyes. As he shut the door behind him the two Fulcrum operatives turned to each other.

"I really hate that guy." The junior Fulcrum agent lamented.

"He's good, he works."

"He's a bastard, kills friend and foe alike. Believe me I've seen what he does when an op goes bad, the guys a fucking psychopath."

His partner looked at him skeptically, "Then how are you still here?"

"My op didn't go bad, but someone he worked for told me about one that did."

"Uh-huh." The senior agent replied skeptically.

"I'm ser—"

The senior agent slammed his fist on the table, "Go get the remainder of the money. NOW!"

***

As Hayes disappeared around the corner he carefully avoided retrieving his gun from its secure place on his waist. Instead he grabbed his cell phone, and dialed his second contact. "Carina, dear, would you kindly schedule me some relaxation time as soon as possible?" He asked as soon his secretary picked up the phone.

"I'll have a masseuse waiting for you here when you arrive." Carina responded calmly.

"Good and see about getting us a flight to Paris after my meetings are concluded."

"Yes sir." She said with a smile. She'd been hoping he'd take her to Paris.

***

"So what are we doing here?" Chuck asked as they drove towards their hotel.

"Well first we're meeting with an undercover agent." Casey flipped through the briefing papers looking for the name, "a Carina Miller."

Chuck flashed, a normal short one, but he appeared quite disturbed when he emerged. "What's wrong Chuck?" Sarah asked her eyes nervously scanning his body for symptoms of any illness.

"She…uh she likes to uh…she can be very aggressive."

Sarah shrugged, they were on the same side so she shouldn't be a threat. "Is she a threat to us?" Sarah asked.

"Uh, no. She's aggressive sexually." Bryce chimed in from the driver's seat.

Sarah perked up, so she was a threat. "Is Chuck necessary for this? We're just meeting with a random agent to see if she has intel, he could watch over video surveillance."

"Chuck is going, I want him there in case he needs to ask her any questions. Relax Walker its not like she's going to steal your boy toy."

"And what if she's actually a double agent? What then?"

"She's not a double agent, he'll be fine."

***

"Agent Miller." Casey greeted coldly.

She responded with a licentious smile. "Do you have what I requested?" She asked.

Bryce lifted the bag onto the table, "All here. Now what's he doing here?"

"Business, he's planning something relatively minor with Fulcrum. He actually seems to be in a rather foul mood, it took a lot of convincing to get him to talk to me at all."

"So do you know what he's doing?"

"I think it has something to do with NATO."

"But no specific idea as to the actual plan?" Casey asked.

"No, I'm sorry I don't know exactly what they were doing all I know is that it has to do with a computer program and that it involves NATO somehow."

Chuck stepped forward and finally spoke up," Did you possibly hear what the codename for the mission is?"

Carina shook her head, "No but who are you cutie?"

Sarah stepped forward, pushing Chuck out of the way. "His name is Chuck, and he's _my _boyfriend, so there isn't much you can tell us is there?"

Carina got a wicked look on her face, "There might be more, although I think Chuck might need to privately probe me for the answers." She said winking at her newest target.

"Chuck will be doing nothing of the sort."

"Fine suit yourself it'll be on your conscience when they succeed."

Sarah winced.

"Enough! You're a United States government agent and you better damn start acting like it." Casey scolded.

Carina and Sarah both looked at each other accusingly. Carina finally relented, "I…I think it has to do with the NATO Secretary-General my guess would be that want to assassinate him, how I have no idea. If I can figure out they are planning I'll let you guys know. I believe the op is scheduled for tomorrow night, but it could be for tonight as well I can't be sure."

"Wait what is your cover here agent Miller?"

"I'm his assistant and girlfriend."

Sarah's expression softened, she always felt bad for agents who had to sleep with their marks; fortunately Sarah no longer had that problem since she was sleeping with Chuck of her own free will not because of orders and god did she enjoy screwing his brains out.

"Yeah he's not a bad lay either, certainly not the best I've had but he isn't bad." Sarah's faced hardened again, if Carina was happy about her assignment Sarah wasn't going to feel sad for her.

"You know how to contact us if you get anything else?" Casey asked sternly.

"Bryce same number as last time?"

"Yeah."

"I'll call you if I find out anything more." Carina assured them.

***

Carina sauntered back into her hotel room, "Mr. Hayes?" She called out.

Silence greeted her so Carina headed towards the safe hoping to access some of his documents. She had seen him enter the combination when they had first entered the suite and had memorized it. She quickly glanced around the rest of the room before entering in the final number and opening the safe. Seeing no one, she did so.

While Hayes hadn't exactly forbade Carina from using the safe he hadn't expressly allowed it, but when undercover without the hope of a rescue Carina preferred to err on the side of caution. Deciding that it was clear she entered in the final number and pulled open the safe.

She expected to find documents, plans, maybe even a computer. The attaché case was a surprise, but the bigger surprise was the money that she found inside of it. "See something you like?" The voice asked from behind.

Carina spun around as her mind raced to find an adequate cover story. "When did you get that? I don't remember you having it on the plane."

Hayes was leaning against the door with a smug smile on his face, "This afternoon. What were you doing in there?"

"I wanted to put my earrings in here." She said quickly reaching her hand towards her ears.

He eyed her suspiciously for a moment. Carina felt his eyes boring into her, searching for any hint of duplicity. "Do you want to go out for drinks?"

Carina relaxed, "I'd really rather just order room service and stay in." She said sauntering towards the bedroom. Carina prayed that sex would distract him, the earrings were a flimsy excuse at best and she didn't want him to think to much about why she was snooping in his safe.

He turned to follow her, but a knock at the door stopped him. "Order room service." He called over his shoulder as he headed towards the door. He looked through the peephole and was promptly angered, his Fulcrum contacts were outside. Hayes started to reach for his gun before he remembered that he had hidden it. He grunted in disgust at himself before opening the door.

"We have your mon—" the agent started before Hayes pushed him out of the doorway and into the wall.

"Who the fuck told you to come visit me here? He ground out. Hayes continued after the agent that had spoken and forced him into the wall.

"We—we just have your money and…"

"You do not visit me here, do I make myself clear?" Hayes spat.

The other agent meekly held out the suitcase with money, "it's all there."

"Disappear I don't ever want to see you at this hotel again." Hayes said releasing the Fulcrum agent and retreating back to the door. The two slinked off towards the stairwell.

Hayes reentered the hotel room and silently shut the door. However his stealth was for naught, for when the Ring agent turned around he was greeted to the beautiful site of a very naked Carina. "Who was at the door?" She asked.

"No one."

"Sounded like someone." She said with a seductive smile.

"Did you call for room service?"

"No, I figured you'd have an appetizer first."

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Oh? I don't see any appetizers." He said with a smile.

"Your looking at it." She said slipping back into the bedroom.

"Really? Because you look more like a full course meal." He said before following her.

***

**The Next Morning**

**Fulcrum Brussels Branch**

Hayes was angry, well angry would be a bit of an understatement, he was furious with the Fulcrum agents. "You're lucky I'm not walking away right now."

"We gave you your money; you'll do what you were paid to do." The senior agent responded.

"You assholes nearly blew my cover; I'm taking command of this operation you amateurs are done. You will do as I say, follow my orders, and run this op my way, got it?" Hayes gently wrapped his hand around the gun he had tucked in the back of his waist band. If they refused he'd have no choice but to end the op and eliminate anyone who could identify him.

The younger agent nodded while the senior agent glared at the usurper.

"Good, now has your operational changed since I was briefed? " Hayes said surprisingly upbeat. "Well actually I suppose that doesn't matter, anyway I'll be devising a new operation."

"Is there something wrong with our plan?"

"No, well yes—not really, but I'm going to be taking the shot which means a few of your guys are going to have to be moved around." Hayes said quickly, as he moved more into the planning of the operation his speech steadily increased in speed. "Okay so we're going to have to have some-of-your-people here, here, and here you guys are-going to have to take out the security cameras like I was going to and thenI'lltakeout theambassador."

The Fulcrum agents nodded, despite barely understanding what he had actually said.

"Good, so we go tonight."

"The plan was for tomorrow."

"Yes and I'm moving it up, deal with it."

The two Fulcrum agents nodded again. They certainly weren't going to contradict him, most who did never crossed anyone again.

***

**CIA Safe House, Brussels**

Ding and Clark's image appeared on the TV. The background was completely shrouded in darkness and the only light source was the pale light of their computer, which resulted in an eerie pale glow on their faces. "So Agent Hansen believes that they plan to kill the Secretary-General?" Clark asked immediately.

"We believe so, yes." Casey answered.

Clark waited a minute for them to go on. "I presume you have a plan to prevent that from happening?" Clark eventually asked when it became obvious that none of them were going to supply it.

"We've contacted NATO security and apprised them of the situation; we also arranged to wait in the Secretary-General's office after hours."

"Do you know why they're targeting him?"

"No, Carina didn't have much intel on this operation at all, we're lucky she had a target."

"Ok, Ding and I just have a few more meetings to finish up here before we head to meet you. We should be there around midnight."

"I thought you were supposed to only have a short delay?" Bryce asked.

"Things change. Good luck out there." Clark said abruptly terminating the conversation.

Chuck turned to Sarah, "So what are we going to do?"

Sarah opened her mouth to answer, but Bryce jumped in, "Sarah will be with us laying in wait, you are going to sit in the van." Sarah closed her mouth and managed to keep her face devoid of any signs of annoyance.

"What if they come after me?" Sarah glanced nervously to Casey and Bryce, in truth she was afraid that something would happen to Chuck and she wouldn't be there to help him; of course given what they were doing, waiting for an assassin to come and try and kill whoever was inside the room, they needed as much help as they could get. It didn't help that she had been having a bad feeling ever since Carina had given them the intel, something just told her that this would not end well.

"They won't, you'll be fine." Bryce said.

"If you stay in the van." Casey added.

Sarah glanced nervously between the NSA agent and her boyfriend. She was worried about him getting hurt, no one would be there to protect him if they discovered the van. "You'll be fine Chuck." She said unconvincingly.

"So if this is going down tomorrow what are we doing tonight?"

"We set up and do what we're going to be doing the next night."

***

**NATO Headquarters-That night**

Casey approached the Secretary-General's office, flanked by Sarah and Bryce, "Ready?" He said to the two security guards outside the door.

They both nodded, and allowed the trio to enter into the office. A moment later the Secretary-General emerged from his office and was spirited away by his two guards out the back of the facility in a different, unmarked, car. Sarah, Casey, and Bryce then took up positions inside his, now vacant, office. As Sarah shut the door behind her she shut out the lights, plunging the room into darkness.

***

Hayes pulled the balaclava over his face and turned to look at his support team one last time. He reviewed everything in his head quickly: Carina was sleeping safely, and unaware, in his hotel room, his computer program was set, his flight out country was booked. He loaded his gun, and nodded to the man on the computer. The technician's fingers danced across the keys has he started the program to knock out the security system. It allowed him to take two different routes, one to the Secretary-General's office, and the other to the American Ambassador's office.

Hayes jumped out of the van and slipped the gun into the back of his pants. He immediately slunk into the shadows and began making his way towards the stairwell.

***

Chuck sat nervously in the surveillance van, the Fulcrum van had parked a few spots away from his and he had personally seen the assassin get out of the van, he had quickly blended into the shadows of the poorly lit underground parking garage. He keyed his microphone, "Guys they're here. I just saw the—the bad guy get out of the van."

"What are you sure? Carina said it wasn't set till tomorrow night."

"Well I'm pretty sure the guy dressed in all black with a gun isn't there to admire the architecture, so yeah its going down tonight, Carina was wrong."

"Good job moron, now just keep monitoring the feeds and let me know if he deviates from the expected route.

"Good job Chuck, be careful."

"I'm not the one waiting for someone to try and kill me."

Sarah sighed; they'd had this fight the night before. "Chuck I've already told you, we'll be fine he isn't expecting armed resistance."

They lapsed into silence.

Chuck said nothing, they'd spent half the night arguing over it, and the other half making up. After a minute Chuck noticed the security cameras went out. "Ok standard security feeds are out." He reported to his team. "Still have him on our cameras." Chuck said as he switched his feeds from the standard security ones, to the ones that Sarah had installed.

Chuck had to squint as the assassin stuck to the shadows of the already dimly lit corridors. Chuck continued to update them on his progress as he moved from one camera to the next.

***

Hayes approached the junction where his path split off from the one he knew the CIA expected him to take. They were under the impression that his target was the Secretary-General, rather than the US ambassador. He glanced up at the camera that had been placed on the wall, it was displaying only static, but for the CIA agents that were watching it, Hayes knew they would assume he was proceeding on the preplanned route. Sending the CIA on the wrong trail had been a key part of his plan from the beginning, feed them misinformation so that they're-direct all of their security efforts around the wrong target.

He turned left and went down the corridor, rather than proceed straight towards the CIA trap. The cameras in this section had also been brought down, but fewer cameras were located along this route so it was less likely to be the priority.

***

"Uh Sarah I don't see this guy anymore." Chuck said after he hadn't seen any movement on any of their cameras for several minutes.

"What do you mean?"

"He disappeared from the previous camera, but hasn't appeared on any of the subsequent cameras."

"Any idea what's up?"

"No."

"Could he have simply evaded that camera?" Bryce asked, tightening his grip on his gun.

"If he did than he's evading all of them, because he hasn't appeared on any of the other ones."

"Well hopefully it's not that, Sarah are you sure you placed all the cameras correctly? Didn't mix up any of the signals?" Casey said with a growl.

Sarah nervously glanced around again and, like Bryce, tightened her grip on the gun. Sarah's eyes flickered over to the window, perhaps he was going to come from the outside? Sarah quickly shook off the thought; those windows were made of bullet-resistant glass and were locked shut, "No I made sure they were all good."

Casey looked unconvinced.

"Chuck check the feed, could have taken another route besides the one we planned for?"

The comm. was silent for a moment as Chuck rewound the tapes and watched how he went. "He looked like he was heading towards the left, let me check the schematics." He said quickly pulling up the building plans on another monitor. "No there's nothing down that way unless…"

"Unless what, Chuck?" Sarah said with a tint of desperation in her voice, she had a bad feeling about the op the entire time, but had kept it to herself, not wanting to scare Chuck.

"Unless his target isn't the Secretary-General."

"Who else would he be targeting?"

"The US representative's office is down that way." Chuck said distantly, his mind still trying to catch up with what his brain was telling him.

Sarah quickly cast a look at Bryce, "Do you think Carina could be dirty?"

"I don't think so, but she could have been given faulty intel. I mean she even said that she wasn't sure that he was the target." They spent a moment casting questioning glances around at each other in a Mexican standoff version of facial expressions. Then Sarah took off running, bursting out of the door with no regard for silence. Casey and Bryce followed quickly with the same subtlety.

They arrived outside his office shortly thereafter to find the door locked, closed, and dark. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief, hopefully he wasn't in and the assassin had been using faulty intel as well.

As Casey and Bryce began bashing down the door Chuck came on the radio again, "Sarah he just appeared in the hallway leading to the parking lot again, I guess he was avoiding the cameras."

Sarah looked at her partners for a moment in indecision. Then she took off for the parking lot.

***

"Sarah do we have a spare set of keys in the van?" Chuck said as he began transitioning to the front of the van.

Sarah heard the noise he was making as he moved from the back of the van to the front, "No, Chuck what's happening?" She said with trepidation, she was afraid that he was being kidnapped before her very ears.

"Dammit, if he gets in the van he'll escape." Chuck said pausing for a moment, before a moment of genius, or total stupidity, struck him.

Sarah heard the distinctive sound of a door being opened. "Chuck what's happening?" She said into the radio, she was furious. They prevent her from protecting him and then he gets caught on the first mission.

"I'm going after him Sarah."

"What! NO Chuck get back in the van right NOW!" Sarah yelled as she sprinted doubly fast towards the exit.

"Sarah we can't let him get away." Chuck said closing the van door and moving towards the exit the assassin would have to use.

"And you aren't equipped to take him down."

"I don't need to knock him out, just buy some time for you to get here."

"CHUCK, don't. Please, just don't it's not worth your life."

Chuck ignored her pleas and continued towards the exit door. He saw the assassin exit, dressed in all black. "Sarah hurry up, he just got here and I don't think I'm going to delay him much."

"Bartowski don't be an idiot, you aren't trained for this. Get the license plate number and get out of there." Casey scolded over the radio.

However it was too late as Chuck charged the assassin. Unsurprisingly Chuck's spur of the moment plan failed when the assassin side stepped Chuck's tackle. He brought down the butt of his pistol onto the back of Chuck's skull, knocking him out.

As the assassin turned to execute his would be attacker he saw a flash of blonde hair through the doors he had just exited himself. He fired a pair of rounds at the door to slow her progress and turned towards his escape vehicle. He stopped for a moment to level his gun at Chuck. A moment later several bullets impacted the glass window on the door, a pair of rounds impacted the car near him. Hayes retreated from the door towards his van.

As he slammed the van door shut behind him, hearing a few bullets ding off the outside of the van as well, he turned to the driver, "Back to the safe house and step on it."

***

Sarah caught sight of Chuck's body lying still on the ground as soon as she exited into the parking structure. "Chuck!" She called running after him. She ignored the fleeing van and quickly began searching him for signs of trauma. She felt his neck for a pulse and let out a sigh of relief when she felt one, his breathing seemed okay so she turned him over and checked for any wounds. When she wasn't able to locate any on his front, side, or back she let out a long sigh of relief. He was safe. She sat down next to him and pulled his head into her lap, and began running her fingers through his hair while whispering sweet nothings to him.

That was how Casey and Bryce found her when they had finished dealing with security and answering questions about their mission. "Sarah what the hell are you still doing here?"

She didn't react, either ignoring them or not hearing him.

"Come on Sarah let's get back to the hotel."

Sarah looked up at them, noticing them for the first time, and nodded distantly.

***

Clark spotted her as soon as he entered the hotel bar; she was sitting alone at a table with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue and a glass. He motioned for the bartender to bring over another glass and sat down next to her. "You okay, Sarah?" He said quietly.

She took note of his use of her first name; it wasn't often that he used it; he preferred to call her by her last name. Sarah remained silent and simply poured herself another drink. When she finished he grabbed the bottle and filled his glass, which the bartender had just delivered. "To close calls." Clark said holding his glass up to toast. Sarah didn't acknowledge him and simply drained her glass and reached for the bottle again. "Not wasting any time in getting wasted tonight." Clark said with a smile as he took a sip from his drink.

"Nope." She said refilling her glass and draining it again.

Clark was content to simply let her sit there and drink for awhile and he did so. Eventually, however, Sarah decided to speak, "He could have died you know?"

"I know Sarah."

"That bastard could have fucking upped and died on me."

"I know Sarah."

"What was I supposed to do? Shoot him to stop him?"

"You did all you could, sometimes there's nothing you can do."

"But what if he DIED?" Sarah screamed the final word, "He can't die, I—I won't—I can't let that happen."

"He's alive, he's safe, you're alive, you're safe. Everything worked out."

"But next time everything might not! How am I supposed to look at him, touch him, let him touch me, let him hold me, knowing that he might not always be there to do that! Knowing that he might—that he could—that he could," Sarah's voiced dropped to a whisper and she leaned closer to Clark, "that he could not be there to do that one day."

"What would you have him do?"

"STAY IN THE CAR." Sarah yelled in desperation.

Clark shook his head with a smile, "You know Sarah the car isn't the safest place in the world."

Sarah just looked at him.

Clark looked at her pensively for a moment before deciding to tell her the story, "I was dating this girl once, many years ago, she'd be messed up on drugs and forced into prostitution. She was getting clean when I met her and in order to help her get some closure we took a drive to identify some of the men who…yeah, so we never left the car. They saw her, shot up the car, kidnapped, and killed her, I was put in the hospital and was next to her the entire time." He glossed over a lot of the details of the story, but judging by the reaction on Sarah's face it had the desired effect.

Sarah sat there stunned for several minutes. "So you're saying that he's not safe anywhere? He could get killed at any time?"

"You can't control everything Sarah. I won't lie to Chuck could very well get hurt, or even die." He paused when he saw the flash of fear in Sarah eyes, "But Sarah don't let fear run your life."

I…I'm sorry."

Clark smiled at the change in her demeanor. "It was a long time ago. Sarah I can have you transferred back to field ops and paired with someone else, would you prefer that?"

She shook her head.

"That's the safest thing to do, break up with him and leave."

Sarah shook her head no violently.

Clark looked at her pensively for a moment before asking, "Sarah, do you love him?"

Sarah looked up, her blue eyes glistening with unshed tears for what could have befallen her boyfriend, her Chuck. "Yes." She said in a barely audible whisper. Her voice was hoarse and raspy, infected with the pain of imaginary scenarios where Chuck didn't escape the assassin unharmed.

"Would you like to go back to your room? See Chuck?"

Sarah poured herself another drink, "I'm not ready to see him yet."

"You're going to have to talk to him."

Sarah looked down at her drink, "Is he awake?"

"Yeah, know what his first words were?"

Sarah continued to stare at her drink, "No."

"He wanted to know where you were, he was worried you might have gotten hurt. Should have seen the look on his face when he realized that you just didn't want to be there when he woke up. Figured that you just didn't care enough about him to be there."

"What? No he can't think that's why I wasn't there."

Clark simply nodded before swallowing his own drink.

"I've…He can't think that."

Clark shook his head in disapproval, "What would you think if he was just sitting downstairs drinking rather than being there for you. Probably thinks you don't even care about, that you were just manipulating him; hell if I were him I'd probably never want to see you again."

Sarah's eyes went wide and she practically fell off her chair in an attempt to get the elevator and her room as fast as possible.

Clark just sat back, poured himself another drink and smiled to himself, "Good girl, knew you had it in you." As he tipped the glass back and took a drink.

***

Sarah arrived at their hotel room in record time and desperately started jamming her keycard into the door. "Come on stupid thing WORK damn you!" She screamed at the door when it flashed red and then punched the door. A moment later it opened to reveal an amused Ding.

"Is he still up?" Sarah said desperately grabbing onto Ding's shirt.

"Still? He hasn't woken up yet." Ding said pointing towards the bedroom where they had put Chuck.

"But Clark said…" Then it dawned on her. She smiled to herself a bit before heading, far more calmly than when she had entered the room, towards their bedroom. She opened the door softly and took a seat near the bed content to simply watch him.

She eventually dozed off, but was awoken several hours later by a raspy whisper, "Sar-ah?"

She looked warmly upon her newly awoken boyfriend, "Yes Chuck? I'm here." She said to him and then whispered quietly to herself, "and I'm not abandoning you ever."

A/N- Okay hope you enjoyed, please leave a review.

Now for the reasons I didn't update sooner

The show has, of late, bummed me out a bit and both myself and many other authors have found it rather difficult to continue writing. I'm hoping that the show will soon move back towards the show I watched for, which would hopefully make it easier to write, if not I will admit future updates will probably be delayed, however that was not the only reason this update took so long in coming. Mass Effect 2 has taken up a significant portion of time, along with Mid Terms, and numerous computer problems I've had.

Oh and to the anon reviewer who decided spamming my inbox with reviews was a good idea (one kudos on the creativity) and two is your account Joe 262? If you have one please tell me so I can update you in the future if updates are delayed like this.

Well I think that about covers it, thanks for reading and please review I do really enjoy reading your comments.


	13. The Hunt for Red October

Chapter 13

_A/N When I've written torture scenes in the past they were not very well received so they've been pretty well sterilized in this chapter, but there are references to it. Just warning you._

_I'm now adding dates, locations, and times, it got to be to much trying to keep the dates and times all right without writing it down, can't imagine what it would be like for you readers. _

I apologize the initial upload had some formatting problems. Nothing has changed

Chapter 13- The Hunt for Red October

**CIA Safe-House, Brussels Belgium**

**July 3****rd****, 2009 0500.**

"Can I have some water?"Chuck asked quietly.

Sarah nodded quickly and headed out to the kitchen to get him a glass of water.

Bryce looked up from where he was cleaning his gun at the kitchen table, "How's our boy doing?"

"Just came out to get a glass of water." Sarah said moving to the cabinets and grabbing a clean glass. "Where's Chavez?" She asked filling up the glass from the sink.

"Went down to meet with Clark and Casey, I guess they're getting up to speed now that they have a break."

Sarah nodded and headed back into the bedroom only to emerge a moment later without the glass. "He's sleeping." She said slipping into the seat across from her partner.

Bryce put down the gun and looked over at her, "How are you doing? We haven't had much of a chance to talk since this whole thing started."

Sarah stayed silent for a moment, "I kind of miss the smaller team, when it was just me and you against the world, but…" her voice drifted off as her eyes slid over to the bedroom door.

Bryce nodded, "Thank you, for that by the way."

Sarah dragged her gaze away from the bedroom and back to Bryce, "What do you mean?"

"For not breaking his heart. For not breaking your own while you were at it to."

"I have no idea what you are talking about." She said, hastily looking away from both the bedroom and partner.

"I know you better than you think Sarah Walker. Just because I don't say anything doesn't mean I don't see anything. You've fallen for him haven't you?"

Sarah remained silent, but her eyes told Bryce all he needed to know.

"Yeah, thought so."

"You always were too observant for your own good." Sarah muttered under her breath.

"You haven't told him though." Bryce observed.

"I…I'm going to go see him."

"Hang on a minute Sarah." Bryce called as she stood in the doorway between her bedroom, and a sleeping Chuck, and the rest of the suite. "We haven't really gotten the chance to talk since this whole thing started."

Sarah relented and turned back to him, "Yeah it's not the same as when it was just us against the world is it?"

"Yeah, I've actually been thinking about requesting a transfer."

"What! Why? You—we—everyone is great here. You're Chuck's friend and mine."

"Sarah you and Chuck don't need me hanging around."

"Bryce I—I'm not—please, I'd rather you not go and if you asked Chuck I imagine he'd tell you to stay as well."

"Sarah I've been your partner, your friend for years I think it's time for a change."

"Bryce this is the _Intersect_ there's nothing more important than it, are you really saying you want to throw all that away? Besides the fact that we have no idea what's happening with Carina, who that assassin was, and what their plan is. I don't want to lose another one of my friends"

Bryce looked at her, "I'll think about it."

"So how have you been doing?" Sarah said hoping to rekindle some of their old friendship embers, and convince him that he was still wanted and need with the team.

Bryce picked up his weapon again and resumed cleaning it, "I haven't met anyone if that's what you're asking, while you might have the asset under some very close 24/7 surveillance the rest of us have to actually do some real work."

Sarah smiled and stood up again, "Want something to drink?"

He nodded and Sarah went to retrieve the coffee maker, "So what do you think about Carina?"

Bryce shook his head, "I don't know Sarah, to believe that after everything we'd been through…I really just can't believe that she'd betray her country like that."

Sarah nodded, "Yeah it's hard to believe someone could do something like that, but the evidence is right there: she disappears the day after the US ambassador is assassinated? And she was sleeping with the man or orchestrated the whole thing."

"But then I think that maybe she didn't do it. I mean her boss could have simply player, but if he played her then he knows she's DEA, and if he knows that …"

"Either way we need to find Carina and fast." Sarah said sadly, they knew they didn't have much hope of that, at least not quick enough to spare her whatever her boss was planning.

"Tracking down a government agent who doesn't want to be found isn't easy."

"She might want to be found, we don't know that she's a traitor."

Sarah nodded and then yawning turned back to Bryce. "Well I'm going to turn in, goodnight Bryce."

Bryce finished reassembling his weapon before leaving the hotel room and heading downstairs.

***

**CIA Safe-House, Brussels Belgium**

**July 3rd, 2009. 0515.**

When Bryce arrived in the hotel bar he saw Ding, Clark, and Casey all sitting around a table.

"We've just been going over the mission. The Intersect performed as expected when outside the immediate presence of Sarah." Casey was saying as Bryce pulled up a chair and joined them.

"So I suppose that means we need to get him trained and keep her with him as much as possible."

"Well I don't think that'll be very difficult." Ding said with a smile.

Bryce smiled, "No I don't suppose it will be."

"You don't have a problem with an agent compromising herself with an asset?" Casey asked Clark.

Clark shook his head, "No, not really. Just means that she's going to keep him alive, safe, and happy that much harder. Frankly I pity anyone who gets between him and her, because she'll probably tear them limb from limb before they can step out of the way."

Casey looked at him, but said nothing.

"Colonel in the morning I want you to check all the train and bus stations in the city for signs of Agent Miller. Larkin I want you to check the airports. Ding check the rental car locations."

"And tonight?"

Clark stood up and tossed a pair of bills on the table, "I'm going to bed, have a good night be up bright and early tomorrow morning."

"What about Chuck and Sarah?"

Bryce smiled knowingly, "I think we should let them sleep in."

Clark shook his head, "They're part of this team and are going to act like it. We're hunting a fugitive across Europe and she's probably already on her way out of the country we need to be hitting this thing with all available resources as soon as possible that includes the Intersect."

Bryce nodded.

***

**CIA Safe-House, Brussels Belgium**

**July 3rd, 2009. 0700.**

Sarah awoke to a relatively loud knocking on her door; she groaned and turned over, burying her head deeper into Chuck's neck. Sarah felt him move slightly beneath her, she smiled and hugged him closer to herself. A moment later she felt his arm grip her tighter and heard him make some sort of pleased murmur.

The knock came again along with a voice. "Rise and shine we've got important work to do."

Sarah refused to move and she felt her eye lids droop as utter comfort overtook her; nestled within Chuck's arms she felt safe, happy, content. Sarah whimpered in protest when she felt his arms loosen around her waist, then she felt him roll over. She smiled to herself for a moment, she looked forward to feeling his weight on her, but it never came. A moment later she felt his weight leave the bed as he stood up.

"Come back to bed." Sarah said smiling.

The knocking grew louder, "Sarah, Chuck lets go!"

Chuck shook his head and grabbed her hands; Sarah smiled thinking he was going to join her back in bed, but he pulled her up for a quick kiss and then tried to pull her out of the bed. Sarah frowned, she wanted a perfectly normal morning with Chuck, but it seemed the world was just against her.

Finally she groaned and moved towards the dresser to get dressed. She saw Chuck with a smile, "I hate you, I hope you know that."

Chuck smiled, "Uh huh."

"We could have stayed in bed all morning."

"I think there's something important going on."

"I doubt it, if there was I'd know and then I'd have gotten you out of bed an hour ago." Sarah said dismissively. Seeing Chuck's incredulous look Sarah tried to be serious, "What? I'm professional when it matters! I just…My dad always told me that the only way he kept his sanity while part of the CIA was to keep his work and personal lives separate; so that's what I'm doing, when we have to work, we work and when we don't we don't leave the bedroom." She finished with a licentious smile.

"Right." Chuck said with a small laugh.

"Not my fault you did your damnedest to make me fal—have feelings for you." They both stared at each other, keenly aware of what was almost said. They finished dressing in silence before walking out of their sanctuary.

"Pull shit like that again and you won't ever share the same bedroom again." Clark warned the moment they emerged. Casey stood perched over his left shoulder with a smile on his face unlike either of them had ever seen the NSA agent crack.

"Yes sir, sorry sir." They both repeated.

Chuck I want you to look over these files. Clark said pointing to two massive stacks of paper and folders. Sarah meet Casey for the rest of your assignment.

Fortunately it didn't take long for the Intersect to provide some help as Chuck managed to flash on a vehicle registered to the Ring and started tracing its route.

***

**Paris, France**

**July 5th, 2009. 2130.**

Carina smiled nervously as her mark walked back into their bedroom. This was the first real rest she'd gotten since he'd pulled her out of bed in Belgium. "How are you honey?" He said with a smile.

"Confused, aroused, bored." She said pulling the blanket off of her exposing her naked body.

"Well I think I might be able to fix some of those," Hayes responded as he moved to stand next to her on the bed. "But first I have a question for you, who was on the team that was at the embassy? Specifically the idiot who attempted to tackle me."

Carina froze for a moment until she met his icy gaze, his blue eyes burned with an intensity she had never seen before. This wasn't something she could wiggle her way out of, he wanted that information and he was dammed well going to get it.

"Chuck is his first name, I don't know what his last name is. The other team members are Bryce Larkin, John Casey, and Sarah Walker. I don't know anyone else on the team, if you're going to start killing them I'd start with that bitch Sarah Walker."

Hayes nodded running his hands over her body, "I'll take that under advisement, unfortunately after tonight is over I'm going to have to do some very nasty things to your body, and not the kind you like either."

Carina froze this was her worst nightmare: being trapped in an unknown location with no help coming, no way out, and no way to signal for help. She was alone.

***

**CIA Safe-house, Paris France.**

**July 6****th****, 2009. 1840.**

Sarah was nearing her breaking point; Chuck understood and had sent her into the makeshift sleeping area they had set up for a few hours of rest before resuming her search. While the search had been draining on all of them the agents had it the worst. Chuck was used to the long grueling hours of pouring over data, that often made him sick, Sarah and Bryce had no such experience and were used to just getting orders and going.

Now being forced to sit and wait while imagining what was happening to a fellow agent Sarah and Bryce had a difficult time adjusting. Casey had grown somewhat accustomed to the waiting during his time at Echelon. Clark was used to it from his time commanding operations and Ding appeared to adapt to it relatively well.

Chuck walked into the room and settled onto the bed next to Sarah. "Chuck?"

"Expecting someone else?" He asked jokingly.

She rolled over and faced him, "Never."

Chuck smiled back at her, "Good, because you're stuck with me."

Sarah leaned forward pressing her lips to his. Just as she started to deepen the kiss she heard the door open. "Bryce, Sarah, Chuck we've got a fix on her location." Ding called.

Sarah groaned against him. "Hey if you want to try and spend a few more minutes here I can cover for you. I know this is hard for you, you're used to always being in on the action not the mundane tracking and finding the targets."  
Sarah smiled up against him; she relished the feeling of having someone to take care of her, even if she couldn't take him up on it. "As great as that would be, I don't think Mr. Clark will appreciate it."

Chuck gave her a tight smile, "Okay if your sure." As he stood up his smile dropped to be replaced by a frown, he wanted to return Sarah's earlier treatment of him when wasn't feeling well.

***

_Chuck had been laid up in bed for the entire day, leaving it only for short periods of time to use the bathroom. When his bedroom door creaked open he wasn't even able to muster up the energy to open an eye, if it was an enemy agent come to kill him so be it. "Chuck?" He heard a soft feminine voice call._

_Chuck opened his eyes and saw his cover-girlfriend walk into the room. "Hey." She repeated warmly. _

"_Hi." Chuck repeated hoarsely. _

"_You need anything? Water, ginger ale, soup, crackers?" Sarah asked as she moved next to him. _

_Chuck weakly shook his head, "I'm fine, just need some sleep."_

_Sarah squeezed his hand, "Okay well feel better, okay? You are kind of important." She said before reluctantly heading towards the door. When she reached it she turned around again, "I'm going to make you some soup and bring you up something to drink. Try and get some sleep."_

_Chuck smiled at her, "Is this what cover-girlfriends do?"_

_Sarah shot him a brilliant smile before exiting the room. As soon as she was out of the door she shut it behind her and once it clicked shut she leaned her head back up against it and answered his question, "No its what cover-girlfriends who want to be real-girlfriends do."_

_Sarah returned several minutes later to find Chuck dozing in bed. Sarah placed the tray of food she had prepared on the nightstand and moved to leave when he stirred. "Thanks." He said very sleepily. _

"_Are you okay? Do you need to go to the doctor? Any idea of what's wrong?"_

"_Just some food poisoning from last night." He said slurring his words a bit. The entire effect of his slurred words, unkept hair, and vulnerable appearance made him virtually impossible for Sarah to resist and she ran her hands through his hair. _

"_Oh, I'm sorry. Do you think you'll feel better by tonight? I was kind of making some plans for us." She said nervously rocking on her heels._

"_I hope so." He said squeezing her hand back._

_***_

**France**

**July 7th, 2009. 0015.**

The team prepared to assault the old warehouse they'd tracked Carina down to. While the plan had been thrown together in a few minutes, all of their intel suggested that the place was pretty much abandoned apart from a small security detachment left to guard Carina. Clark pulled the van off to the side of the road and turned to the team members in the back, "Okay you know the drill, we go in hard and fast, get the hostage, and get out. We keep this nice and tight and we all go home so good lucky people."

Chuck looked at the thermal scans of the building and began overlaying them with the layout of the building they had on file. "It looks like they only a have a few guards spread out pretty far across the building."

Sarah leaned over and looked at the map he was constructing, "Bryce there are two guards on the other side of you door, be careful."

Chuck looked back to the satellite scan for a moment then did a quick double take. "Wait Sarah how many did you have at first count?"

"Six why?"

"Did anyone take out any of the guards?"

A pair of negatives echoed across the comm. link, "Ok…Ok…uh we've got a problem then. Yeah, uh, we're missing a person."

"Meaning?"

"That somewhere in there is a room that's shielded."

Sarah's eyes went wide and her head whipped around to look at him.

"Fuck." Someone said over the radio.

"So we can't get an accurate count on them anymore."

Sarah was torn, she was tempted to try and go and help them, but if she left Chuck in the van then he'd probably leave it and get himself captured or killed. "We can have a strike team here in thirty minutes."

"We're not wasting time when she could be being tortured." Clark's voice echoed over the radio squelching all further debate on the matter. "Let's move." Clark said before both team, Clark and Ding, Casey and Bryce, moved out of their positions on the perimeter and against the door.

"Breach and clear in five…four…three…two…one." Clark called over the radio and it ended with a pair of explosions on opposite sides of the abandoned building.

Bryce and Casey moved in following the detonation of their breaching charge and immediately located, identified, and fired upon the two guards who were in the rooms till stunned from the explosion and subsequent destruction of the door. They both fell from the gunshots within seconds and Casey and Bryce swept the small entrance room for any further threats. When they didn't find any they quickly moved towards the door that lead to the main factory floor. "First room clear." Casey barked over the radio.

Clark and Ding had a far easier time as only one guard had been stationed at their entrance. He quickly fell to three round burst from Ding's MP-5. "Moving to take down the inner room. How many are in the main room?"

"Currently four, but there appears to be a room off to the side that's shielded and I have no way of knowing how many are in that room."

"Ok," Clark said signaling to Ding to prepare to breach the final door. "Three…Two…One." He repeated and the door was blasted off its hinges and the two CIA officers leapt into the room. On the opposite side Bryce and Casey did much the same. The four guards in the room had already been alerted and were waiting for the coming attack, and began firing at the doorways as soon as the charges went off. As Casey and Bryce charged through the door Casey caught a bullet in the chest and Bryce was grazed in the shoulder.

Clark and Ding heard the fire and remained inside the relative safety of the outer room. Clark signaled Ding to throw a flashbang, and then added one himself. They took cover from the sound and flash of light and after they detonated charged into the warehouses central room. The guards who had been protecting it had not been prepared for the flashbangs and were still disoriented enough that they presented no challenge for either CIA agent.

Clark swept the left side of the room, he sighted and squeezed the trigger. As he continued scanning the room he found one dead body from the Bryce, Casey duo.

Ding swept to the right and found two guards taking cover behind some old piece of machinery. They were still dazed from the flashbang, but he wasn't wasting time on hoping they remained that way Ding squeezed one burst at the pair which went impacted on the abandoned machinery. One of the guards fell to the floor and left the agent's sight. Ding refocused on the remaining target. Ding's next burst hit true and killed the guard. Clark, who had circled around after clearing his side of the room, fired a pair of shots at the prone guard and killed him.

"Casey, Bryce you guys okay?"

"Yeah we'll live." Bryce called back as they all prepared to take out the third room.

Together the four men began moving towards the shielded room. It wasn't blocked by another door, but by some plastic flaps the hung down from the ceiling. As they entered the shielded room they found one man fumbling with a weapon, "HANDS IN THE AIR!" Everyone except Casey, who wanted to just shot him, ordered. The man quickly complied. Casey wasted no time in walking over to him and injecting him with a sedative; as he fell to the ground the four sets of eyes turned to the only other body in the room.

As they looked at the red-haired body, cradling back and forth in the fetal position the team stood in shock for a moment. A glance around the room showed far too many torture implements to be healthy and the marks, blood, and other fluids surrounding the agent told all of them that this would require massive psychological help to recover from. Any doubt as to her loyalty was immediately removed, no one would do this to their own.

Carina looked up at the government agents, "Help me." She said.

They wasted no time as Casey was calling for medevac, Bryce began attending to her wounds, Clark and Ding secured the perimeter.

Chuck and Sarah sat shocked in the van. They couldn't believe what they were seeing.

"She—She's still alive?"

Bryce nodded, "Yeah for now. I can't guarantee she will be for much longer."

"Mr. Clark, there's nothing Chuck can do here and it's making him sick, can I take him back to the hotel? I can come back after he's secure." Sarah said, ever since she'd ignored them on the morning of Carina's kidnapping she'd been attempting to be as professional as possible.

"Take him and stay with him, I think he's going to need someone to talk to."

"Yes sir." Sarah said with a smile.

"Agent Walker, I mean talk to him. Nothing else we're going to be in for a very long working night."

"Yes sir." Sarah responded again as she moved towards the front of the van.

The team turned back to the DEA agent, "Agent Miller can you speak?"

Carina remained in her catatonic state.

Ding took off his shirt and slipped it around her shoulders, "We are going to find whoever did this and tear them limb from limb."

Clark's voice was colder than ice, "That'll be the least of his worries after I'm finished with him."

Hearing him say that elicited a response from the abused woman, as her breath hitched and her hairs stood up on end. She knew then that she had underestimated these people.

"Okay, Agent Miller we're going to take you to the hospital then send you home. Don't worry you won't have a mission for a long time. Just get better okay?" Bryce said as he shifted from clinical detachment to a more affectionate position next to her as he began pushing her hair off her sweat soaked forehead.

Carina shakily nodded acknowledging their plan. She looked forward to a lot of rest and relaxation, of not going on missions, on recovering and perhaps going on vacation somewhere. Somewhere with a beach she could almost feel the warm sand between her toes, water lapping at her feet, the colorful drink in her hand, the well-endowed stud waiting for her back in her room.

The team began their best to tend her wounds.

***

**Ring Headquarters**

**July 8****th****, 2009. 0140.**

"Agent Robert Hayes please step forward." The faceless voice said. Hayes glanced up at figures who were shrouded in darkness and smiled.

"Report." A harsh female voice ordered.

"Agent Carina Miller has been successfully reinserted into the care of the United States government. However in order to accomplish that…certain," he paused for a moment to consider the exact word he wanted to use, "methods had to be used, and because of that I am unable to guarantee that she will still serve our purposes."

"Do they suspect her?"

"No, I made it seem like we broke her and then abandoned her with a small security detail."

"Was she permanently injured?"

"No, she'll be back up in a couple of months."

"Did she learn anything from her CIA contacts?"

"I'm looking for a Chuck, first name probably Charles unknown last name. He didn't appear to be trained, and if he was it was minimal so don't bother searching for any ex-military, or anyone who should be in the field I get the feeling the guy was supposed to stay in the van. You also need to look into an NSA Agent John Casey, CIA Agent Bryce Larkin, and CIA Agent Sarah Walker. If you'll grant me permission I'd like to begin with Agent Walker, apparently her and this Chuck have something of a relationship that should be rather easy to exploit. Capture one, get the other to sell out the rest of the team."

The central member of the leadership spoke for the first time; Hayes had met him previously, and recognized his voice. "We give you orders, not the other way around. We currently have a more pressing concern for you; in China there is a minister there that we would like you to meet with, a minister Zhang Han San." His voice was strained, old, worn out from years of use; he spoke his a loud whisper, like each word was his dying breath.

"We want you to get a reading on him, and discuss the sale of arms to him, this is an important don't mess it up."

"How long till I leave?" Hayes asked, he wanted a vacation after marred such a perfect specimen of female beauty.

"You have a week of down time, any questions?"

"None."

"Dismissed." They all said in unison.

***

**CIA Safe-house, Paris France.**

**July 7****th****, 2009. 0450.**

Sarah parked the van outside their safe-house and just looked at Chuck. "You okay?" She asked.

Chuck shrugged, "Its hard you know? I'm not trained for this stuff like you guys and now I…I mean how could any person do that to another human being?"

Sarah sighed, "Chuck I understand, the first time I had to see someone who was tortured it tore me up inside, fortunately Carina will live and probably return to active duty, I've seen a lot worse."

"There's worse than that?!" Chuck asked in shock.

Sarah looked at the raindrop filled window, "She got off pretty easy compared to some of the things I've seen. It can get pretty bad Chuck."

"It shouldn't." he grumbled.

"No, it shouldn't, but unfortunately not everyone agrees with us on that." Sarah said playing with the keys in her hand. "Now come on let's get inside and we'll start figuring out what our next move is, we're going to have to interrogate the guard we captured, hopefully he can shed some light on the situation.

Chuck looked at her in horror, "We're going to do what they did to her to some poor guy?"

"NO, No Chuck we're not going to do anything like what they did to her." Sarah said with alarm, she couldn't have Chuck thinking that should possibly do something like that to another human being. Sarah opened the car door and stepped our into the rain, "You coming?" She said before shutting the car door and heading up to the safe-house. "I'll be up in a few minutes." Chuck said as he remained in the van.

"Okay, just if you need to talk I'm here."

Chuck nodded.

Forty minutes later Sarah stood admiring her handiwork. She set up the entire the interrogation room along with a room for Carina if she had to stay with them overnight. Then she noticed how quiet it was, not that was missing Clark and the team (she didn't expect them for awhile) but Chuck was missing. Sarah called for him, and upon receiving no response decided that he was probably still downstairs in the van.

She quickly headed downstairs towards the van, and after exiting the building she found him immediately. However he wasn't in the van, but the stairs outside their building. Sarah quickly rushed over to him, "Chuck! What are you doing? You'll catch a cold sitting out here in the rain."

"Sarah…I…I can't—I can't get the image of her out of my mind, all those cuts, and burns, and oh god Sarah how could someone do that?"

"They train you to do it, to turn off your emotional center and some people can do it better than others." She said sadly, her face wet with rain or tears.

"Can you?" Chuck asked.

Sarah slapped him, hard. "Don't you dare lump me in one the animals who did that to her. But to answer your question, no I can't do anything like that."

Chuck didn't react to the slap for a few minutes, didn't react to anything, just let the water beat down on him. Finally he answered her, "Sorry, just…I mean I knew this world wasn't going to be nice, but first our ambassador dies, then Carina…I just didn't think it would be this bad."

"I understand Chuck; the hardest part about becoming an agent was seeing things like this. I remember the first time I saw something like that."

"I'm sorry, but I think I'd be better off without those images." Chuck said wiping some of the water from his eyes.

Sarah looked down; she was hoping to use her own experience with it to help him. "But maybe just how you coped?"

That brought a little light back to Sarah's face, "Well afterwards I kind of just went back to my hotel room and cried in my bathtub. It was the third worst moment of my life, and all I was wishing was for someone to come and hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay. So here I am Chuck, everything is going to be alright, but no one came." Sarah wrapped her arms around Chuck, "But I'm here to hold you."

Chuck leaned into her embrace, "Thank you."

Sarah smiled as her and Chuck stood up to head back inside, as they reached the door they saw car from Ding and Clark appear, shortly followed by Bryce and Casey in a car she assumed was a civilian one they'd been given by the hospital. The couple hung back and held the door open for the team and a few seconds that Carina was led away from the car by Ding, and up into the safe-house. Clark approached them, leaving Casey and Bryce in the car with the prisoner. "Do you have a secure holding room for him?"

"Yes, sir, in the back."

"How—How is Carina?"

"Non-fatal injuries thank god, she'll live physically I don't know about emotionally. The next flight out isn't till morning so we're keeping her with us till then."

They both nodded and allowed Clark to pass as he signaled the remaining duo in the car to get out and come up. They exited their car, dragging the guard between them, and proceeded up the steps to the building. As they made it up the second steps their prisoner, who was already sporting several nasty looking bruises, attempted to escape only; their reprisal was swift as Bryce produced a taser and zapped him on the neck, "fucking asshole don't you dare try anything again or I'll do to you what I did to your friends back there."

Bryce and Sarah shared a look and she nodded to him before indicating for Chuck to let them all through. As soon as they were through a sopping wet Chuck turned to an equally drenched Sarah, "They shouldn't be doing that to him, he surrendered!"

"He's one of the people who did that to Carina, and Bryce and Carina, they used to be…together."

Chuck nodded in understanding.

***

**Outside Café near Ring Headquarters **

**July 8****th****, 2009. 0800. **

Hayes didn't look up from his newspaper as his friend, mentor, and boss, sat down. "Zhang?" He asked annoyed at the low-level assignment.

His boss seemed unfazed by the question and began spreading cream cheese on his bagel, "Other members of the council are concerned about you. They don't trust you." He said after swallowing his first bite. "This is shit, can't get a good bagel outside of New York." He grumbled before washing it down with a sip of his coffee.

"They don't trust me? I've been serving this organization for almost a decade, who doesn't trust me? Hayes said before grabbing his own coffee and drinking it.

His mentor ran a hand through his immaculately groomed gray hairs, "They fear that you are a loose cannon, someone they cannot control. They also know you are here for non-ideological reasons."

"That never bothered you." He responded, replacing the half-empty coffee on the saucer.

"Beautiful morning isn't it? The sun really shines out across the bay."

Hayes nodded, not bothering to look out onto the water. "When can I go after Sarah Walker?"

"Soon, when you return to China. But first there is a problem we must discuss, one of your guards survived the attack on Miller."

"So I'm not going to be Hayes anymore am I?" He asked with a sign, before returning to his coffee.

The elder pushed a pad of papers, passport, and documents across the table to him. "Hello Mr. Shaw."

Hayes looked at the information, "Do I have to speak like an American?"

"Yes." The American responded with a smile.

Hayes immediately switched from his native English to Americanized English, "Did you take care of the team in Brussels?"

His mentor nodded, "I dispatched and oversaw the team myself. The Fulcrum cell you dealt with in Brussels is no more."

***

_The gray-haired patriarch of the Ring surveyed the damage. The team he'd dispatched had been particularly brutal. While most of the Ring's killers weren't known for being nice about it, this was beyond anything he expected. There were signs of torture on some of the bodies, he'd have to watch out for this team they seemed to have a sadistic streak to them, something he certainly wasn't pleased about in this organization._

"_Sir, we interrogated some of them they reported that they didn't talk to anyone about it."_

"_Are any left alive?"_

"_One sir, we just finished interrogating him, we were about to see if you had any questions for him before finishing him." _

_His eyes flittered up from under his glasses, "Take me to him."_

_The mercenary saluted, "Yes sir."_

_He wasn't far, a few room further into the Fulcrum "safe-house" and the sight that greeted the ringleader was a ghastly one. Blood stained the tables and chairs, The man say back in the chair, dying. "You bastard, we did nothing to you, but you still killed us. I didn't even fuck up the op. It was the Intersect that screwed you; the CIA has one in DC." He said through labored breaths. _

_While he showed no outward signs of noticing the mention of the Intersect, the wheels inside his head immediately began turning."You are a liability, one we cannot afford." He pulled out the gun and aimed it at the Fulcrum agents head. "But let me tell you a little secret before you die, okay? Fulcrum is going to become a part of the Ring someday, and when that day comes all your goals and noble intentions will be for naught." He squeezed the trigger. _

***

The aged leader turned to his protégé, "You'll be going undercover after you finish with Walker."

"Oh?" Shaw asked surprised.

"The CIA has an Intersect, you are going to get onto the team and destroy it. You'll pose as someone with inside knowledge of the Ring a good cover don't you say?"

Robert Hayes, turned Daniel Shaw, smiled. "Yes sir, it does."

**CIA Safe-house, Paris.**

**July 7****th****, 2009. 0600.**

Ding and Clark walked out of the interrogation room with a smile, they had a name. "So what's next Mr. C?" Ding asked his boss.

"Well we brief MP, turn him over to the experts at Langley, and starting hunting down this Hayes."

"What about Carina?" Ding asked softly.

"She has a relationship with Larkin and Casey, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"We'll send one of them back with her to help her cope." Clark said leaning against the railing and looking out into the Parisian skyline.

"What about the Intersect?"

"Have a talk with him tomorrow, see how he's doing, I'll keep Walker away."

"Sure, but are you sure you wanna be the one to pry her off him?"

Clark smiled at his future son-in-law, "Probably not, but someone has to do it."

A/N- Okay so who would you guys rather have leave Bryce or Casey? The chapter would be been longer, but I wanted some feedback on that.

Please Review, I do so love them.


	14. The Departure

Chapter 14- The Departure

_A/N- Okay I guess you guys really didn't like that chapter, if your tiring of the story let me know and I can try and wrap it up quickly. I think I might be able to end it in a few chapters if that's what you guys want, although it'd be a very different ending from what I was planning. _

**CIA Safe-house, Paris.**

**July 7****th****, 2009 0800**

Sarah walked out of her bedroom wearing a satisfied smile, "Well someone got laid last night." Ding said as he looked up from the cereal he was eating.

Sarah just smiled at him while heading to get some breakfast for her and Chuck. "Are we doing anything today or?"

"We got a name from our prisoner, sent it up the chain are just waiting for something to come down, you've got the day off although I think Mr. C wants to talk to you about something."

"Can it wait?" Sarah said none too subtly.

Ding laughed, "Yes it can wait, but Bryce is leaving soon if you want to say goodbye."

Sarah turned and groaned. She looked longingly back at the bedroom, she had a day off and didn't want to abandon him, but if Bryce was leaving she needed to say goodbye. "Where is he?"

"With Carina."

"Oh." Sarah said her mouth forming a very exaggerated 'O' shape.

"I can go say goodbye to him?" She asked not wanting to interrupt the pair in the middle of some post-mission sex.

Ding nodded.

Sarah headed back to the room she had prepared for the rescued agent. She knocked once and waited for someone to say, "Come in." When Bryce did she opened the door and stood against the door frame, "So you're leaving me?" She started in a normal voice before noticing that Carina was sleeping on the bed while Bryce packed up, once she noticed the sleeping woman she lowered her voice to a whisper.

"Yeah, Carina needed someone to look after her and well I volunteered." Bryce said looking over at his ex. He reached out and brushed some of her hair off her face, "I think she could use a friendly face, someone she can trust, someone who has her back."

"But can you trust her?" Sarah questioned with a pointed look at Carina.

"Jesus Sarah, she was just tortured and you're still questioning her loyalty?"

"I'm worried about you Bryce; I don't want you to get hurt."

"Worry about Chuck, I can take care of myself…and Carina."

Her voice was lowered, a warning. "Bryce, did you?"

"No." he snapped, "How could you think that? I know you might think I'm too free in whom I share my bed with, but god Sarah I mean look at what she just went through."

Sarah looked down, "I'm sorry just with you and her I kind of thought you guys might have."

Bryce advanced towards her, "Is that jealousy I hear in your voice?" He asked with a small.

"No." Sarah said honestly. "I just…I know how you two are."

Bryce smiled, "Maybe in the future, but not when she's recovering."

"Well I'll see you around then Bryce." Sarah said with a hint of anger, before exiting the room. She didn't like her friend and partner leaving her.

She made it about five steps outside the room before she felt Bryce's hand on her arm. "Sarah this isn't permanent, I'm just with her until she's better, then I'll be back."

Sarah stopped dead in her tracks, "Oh you mean you didn't get the permanent transfer you were thinking about?"

"No, I'm not cutting you and Chuck loose yet."

"Thanks. Try not to stay away to long."

Bryce gave her a smile, "Take care of each other." He said before giving her a kiss on each cheek. "Now did you kill Chuck or can I say goodbye to him?"

"Go on, but don't take too long he's resting."

"You know for someone who was always so resistant to sleep with a mark you certainly seem to be rather insatiable with him."

Sarah just glowered at him. "Hey am I in consideration for godfather?"

"What?"

"Well I figure after you two get married your probably going to start pumping out kids, so I wondered if I was going to get to be a godfather?"

Sarah continued to try and kill him with a look, "We haven't talked about kids." She said dropping her death stare as her eyes drifted to the floor.

Bryce's demeanor changed, "Sarah you're an agent, kids don't exactly jive with your career, you can't exactly drop your kids off on the way to assassinate someone."

Sarah looked forlornly at the door. "MP did it."

Bryce opened his mouth to retort that the director was a station chief, but upon seeing the look on her face, that look which told him that she was dreaming about having those kids and that he'd never be able to forgive himself for taking that dream away from her.

"Let me have a minute alone with Chuck?" Bryce said before Sarah returned to their bedroom.

Sarah paused for a moment looking between the door and Bryce. Eventually she sighed, "Okay."

"Sarah can I took to you for a few minutes?" Clark said as he walked in from the balcony.

Sarah nodded and headed out to take a seat at the small outdoor table that Clark had been sitting at; as soon as she passed her boss he mouthed to Ding, "Talk to him," motioning to Chuck, "I'll keep her busy."

Ding acknowledged the order, but made no move to enter the room. He knew he'd have to wait till Bryce was finished before he'd really get a chance to talk to the Intersect.

Bryce also missed the exchange as he shut the door behind himself as soon as he entered the bedroom.

Chuck was hunched over a desk reading some papers, "What took you so long? I missed you." Chuck said without looking at who actually entered the room.

"Really? Don't tell Sarah, I think she'll get jealous." Bryce said with a laugh.

Chuck jumped up when he heard the voice of his old friend, "Bryce? What are you doing here?"

Bryce smiled and moved to embrace his friend. "I'm leaving in a little bit."

"Leaving? What are you talking about?"

"I'm going back with Carina."

Chuck nodded, "That's…that's good she'll need someone." Chuck said swallowing the lump in his throat, it hurt every time he thought about her.

"I just wanted to say goodbye and," Bryce paused for a moment looking around. "Watch out for Sarah."

Chuck's face immediately adopted a confused expression, "What do you mean?"

"Sarah has feelings for you, those feelings could get one of you tow killed someday. So watch out for her, make sure she does what she has to do not just want she wants to do; if she wasn't so far gone I'd ask you to break up with her, but I'm pretty sure that would just kill her."

Chuck just stared at him, "What?"

"I—We've been in situations where you have to have a clear mind, where you have to be emotionless—cold, hard, calculating—in order to do your job. Sarah can't do that with you, she can't be neutral when it comes to you and someday that might get her killed."

"How?"

"What if someone has you at gunpoint? You think she's going to be able to function properly when she knows that you could be killed at any moment? That's dangerous for her, she can't do her job. But look, I don't want to fight, you're my best friend."

Chuck opened his mouth to continue the argument, but stopped. "So are you ever going to come back?"

Bryce released the breath he had been holding when Chuck let the argument drop, "Yeah I'll be back when she's better, so just try and stay away from Casey until then.

Chuck smiled and nodded. "Good luck." Chuck said as Bryce left, slightly disappointed by the conversation with his old friend. As soon as he exited the room Ding entered.

"Looking over the security footage from the traffic cameras?" Ding asked.

"Yeah, hoping to find something."

"I have some good news, and some bad news. The good news is that we're going to train you, while we're looking for Hayes your going back to Langley. Now I have some bad news for you." Ding paused for a minute to collect himself, "Someone is coming after you. We don't know much, but we know that there have been quite a few inquiries back at Langley into you and the Intersect."

"So what does that mean?"

"Your name isn't in any of these records and they're just looking for a Charles, but there is a problem."

Chuck just looked at him trying to process everything.

"They have Sarah and Casey's name, Bryce to, but he's leaving so that's not a problem."

Chuck just stared at Ding in shock, "What—what does that mean?"

"They might have to be transferred—I'm not saying we're sending her away, but we might have to if someone gets too close to her."

The door opened as Chuck continued gaping at Domingo with an open mouth. "Chuck?" Sarah asked, her eyes nervously jumping between the two men.

"I was just leaving, see you kids later." Ding said before stepping out.

Sarah gave Chuck a smile as soon as Ding left the room, "We have a briefing in an hour."

Chuck nodded, still thinking about what the two men had told him. He turned back to the files.

"What's wrong?" Sarah asked clearly alarmed by his behavior, she hadn't heard what he and Ding had talked about, but she was already unhappy about what Casey had said to her after Clark had left.

***

_Sarah sat down at the small table and waited for her boss to join her, she noticed that Colonel Casey was also outside admiring the view. He looked up at her and grunted. "Hello." She deadpanned. She wasn't a big fan of the hulking NSA agent. _

_Clark stepped back outside. "Sarah you're compromised." _

_Sarah stared at him dumbfounded opening and closing her mouth several times in an attempt to form a coherent sentence. "I—I…What?"_

"_You are compromised." _

_Sarah just continued to stare at him. "I wasn't hiding the fact that I'm involved with Chuck."_

_Clark cracked a smile, "No, not like that. Someone has your name and they're looking for you."_

_The color drained out of Sarah's face, "How?"_

"_We don't know, but our best guess is Carina."_

"_Are they looking for Chuck?"_

_Clark shook his head, "They have a first name, but no last name, they won't find him."_

_Sarah relaxed for a moment seemingly contented that her lover was out of danger then bolted upright, "What does that mean for me?"_

"_You might have to be transferred away from the team, along with Colonel Casey, and Agent Larkin."_

_Sarah stared at him with a mixture of shock and horror. "Your ordering me away from him?"_

"_Not right now no, but there may come a time when that becomes necessary, I'm sorry."_

_Casey looked up from cleaning his gun, "Great back to watch desk weenies sit at a desk. Perhaps I should just use this gun to shoot myself."_

_Clark looked at him._

_Sarah continued looking unhappily at Clark._

"_I'm going to go get another coffee." The team leader said to the two agents._

_Sarah turned to her NSA partner, who was barely containing a laugh, "What?"_

_Casey put down his gun, "Your concern about leaving your boy-toy is touching."_

"_What's the matter, grumpy about not getting laid?"_

_Casey picked up his weapon again and started disassembling it. "No, just find the little dream world you seem to live in rather funny."_

"_What little dream world?" Sarah spat._

"_The one where you and Bartowski are going to run around and have little Intersect children that you drop off at daycare before you two jet off to quell a rebellion in some backwater country." _

_Sarah just stared at him, "What you think your fantasy wasn't obvious? You wear your lady-feelings on your sleeve, bad thing for an agent."_

_Sarah's face hardened, "Just because I'm emotional and affectionate towards my boyfriend doesn't mean I'm not a good agent, nor does it mean I can't conceal my emotions when the job calls for it, but since I'm stuck in the van I don't need to do that."_

_The Colonel just grunted. _

_Sarah meanwhile was doing her best to remain dispassionate; she didn't want to give Casey the satisfaction of seeing how much his comment had hurt her. He was right that had been her fantasy future for her and Chuck, one where they maintained their careers and had kids, a house, dog, the whole nine yards._

"_You need to stop acting like an emotional little girl and start acting like a real agent."He said before he finished reassembling his gun and headed back inside without comment from Sarah. _

***

"Ding said you might be reassigned."

"That won't happen." Sarah said with a confidence she didn't feel.

Chuck's voice got softer, "Don't make a guy a promise if you know you can't keep it."

Sarah stared at him blankly for a few minutes, "Did you just quote Halo to me?"

"Yes."

"Don't do that, but I'm not leaving you."

"Sarah you ca—" Chuck started before turning around and seeing the exasperated expression on her face. She hid it well, but he'd learned how to read her subtle changes in facial expressions and body posture. "Okay, thanks, just I don't want to lose you." As he said that, Chuck was reminded of what Bryce said. "Sarah is our relationship going to present a problem?"

Sarah looked at him with a mix of puzzlement and apprehension; she hoped that he wasn't planning on breaking up with her. "What do you mean?"

"Well Bryce mentioned that our relationship might get in the way of you doing your job."

Sarah's eyes flashed with anger, "Don't worry about my job performance, I'll—we'll be fine I can do my job and have a relationship with you don't worry about that."

The conviction in her voice put all of Chuck's fears to rest.

Sarah paused to collect her breath; she didn't like having the tough conversations. She drifted off thinking about their past, the times when they weren't talking.

"Sarah?" Chuck asked bringing her back from the daydream that she had been in.

"Yes Chuck?"

"What do you think about the training; I mean what should I expect?"

"What training?" Sarah asked now paying attention t o him again.

"Agent Chavez said that while we search for Hayes I was going to be trained."

Sarah eyes went wide with panic, Chuck, _her _Chuck was going to become a trained killer? That was simply unacceptable. "I…I didn't know, I'll try and—I'll get them to stop it." She said shakily. She spoke faster than he'd ever heard her speak, in a tone that told him she was only barely maintaining control.

Chuck looked slightly uneasy, "Are you sure? You don't want me to be trained? Then I'd be an agent."

Sarah nodded vehemently; the news that he was going to become a trained killer had sent her mind into a panic. If he was trained not only would he cease to be the man she'd fallen in love with, but she'd become superfluous, once Chuck could protect himself she was out of the job and then she'd be reassigned far away from him. That was unacceptable. "Yes I'm sure." She spat.

"Okay, so I won't be trained."

"That's it? You'll just refuse?"

"Yeah, that's what you do when you're in a relationship." _Or in love_, he thought to himself.

Sarah gave him a megawatt smile, "Thank you." She said her voice full of palpable relief. Her shoulders seemed to fill with relief and her entire body just seemed to release tension. "Thank you," she repeated.

Sarah collapsed back into the bed, "Are you done with those files?" She asked with a devilish smile.

"Now I am." Chuck said standing up and moving over to their bed.

***

**Langley, Virginia. CIA Conference Room.**

**July 7****th****, 2009. 1900**

"Agent Larkin, Agent Miller." MP greeted as the two agents walked into the conference room.

"Director Foley." Bryce greeted, Carina was still not saying anything.

"You've both been given two months of recovery time; we're going to be shipping you to our Hawaiian facility."

Bryce and Carina looked at each other in surprise, "Really?"

"You've been through a lot and look like you could use a vacation."

"Thank you director." Bryce said.

Carina looked up, locking her eyes with Mary-Pat's. "Robert Hayes, isn't his real name." She said shocking the other two. "Hayes is just a cover, I don't know what his real name is, hell I don't even know where he's actually from I've seen him use American, German, English, Scottish, Irish, and Italian accents."

While she didn't understand what prompted the sudden opening of the information floodgates, but she wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Does he speak foreign languages?"

"Yes I don't know how many. He's dangerous and probably already switched his identity."

"Do you know why he killed the ambassador?" Bryce eagerly asked.

"Money, he's not in this for ideology." Carina said her eyes once again redirected towards the conference table.

"Could we buy him off?"

"He charges a hefty price, but if you're willing to pay it then yes." She said quietly, her arms now wrapped around her chest, eyes completely downcast. She retreated back into herself after that and said no more until her and Bryce landed in Hawaii.

***

**CIA Substation, Hawaii.**

**July 9****th****, 2009. 2025.**

Bryce and Carina sat on the beach watching the sunset, "Anxious about therapy tomorrow?"

"I hate shrinks." She said continuing to stare out at the ocean.

"So what is your team working against?" Carina asked as casually as she could.

"Fulcrum."

"Not the Ring?"

"What's the Ring?" Bryce asked tearing his eyes away from the beautiful setting sun and towards his equally beautiful companion.

_A/N- This was just a short little update, hope you enjoyed it more than the last one. _


	15. Trypanophobia

_A/N- Back from my self-imposed little hiatus_

_Thanks to Natty for looking over this chapter, helped a lot. _

Chapter 15- Trypanophobia

* * *

**Paris, France.**

**July 9th, 2009. 0600**

Chuck turned over and stared at his sleeping girlfriend. He had attempted to get out of bed when he felt Sarah tighten her hold on him. "Sarah?" he questioned in a barely audible whisper.

"Don't leave," she said pulling him back down into her bed.

"Sarah, I have to go to the bathroom."

Sarah looked away from him blushing, "Oh."

Chuck made no attempt to move, but laughed at her reaction. "Sarah did you think I was leaving you?"

"No," she said with a coy smile.

"Oh?" He said remaining in his position pinned underneath her.

"Yeah I'm just feeling rather amorous this morning and was hoping the man in my bed would be able to take care of that."

Chuck smiled at her, "How many more days are we going to be here?"

"I don't know," was her honest answer; they'd been in Paris for several days waiting for some word on Hayes. Chuck was spending most of his time pouring over any kind of data they had that might remotely refer to Hayes—well when he wasn't in bedroom with Sarah, that is.

"Do you think we'll be allowed to continue if the Intersect doesn't turn up any new intel soon?" Chuck asked anxiously. While he had been flashing, none of the flashes had been of a particularly helpful nature.

"I can't see how they could blame you for it; it's not like you're holding back information on purpose or anything, you're just relaying what the Intersect gives you and the Intersect just contains what they fed into it." Sarah said picking her head up off of his chest before resting it back down upon his naked chest. She gave a contented sigh, "I'll miss this," she said, her fingers playing with his chest hair.

Chuck smiled down at his protector, the woman was so full of contradictions she could be so cold, so professional, one moment and so clingy and unprofessional the next. She was a mess of contradictions, but one that he was beginning to fall for anyway, not that he'd ever had much of a chance against her anyway; as soon as he'd consented to their relationship he knew that he'd fall for her. It was simply a matter of time and this week in Paris, the city of love and romance, had only hastened the fall. Chuck only hoped she was falling for him as well. After Jill he wasn't sure how many more heartbreaks he could take.

Sarah smiled into her lover's chest; he was probably the most honest, kind-hearted man she had ever met and she found him in the middle of the CIA. While she had been immediately fascinated by him, his rebuffs had only intrigued her. When she had been given assignments with him she had been filled with happiness that she would be able to see him, work with him, work on getting him to accept her as a potential girlfriend, but his response to her requests had been nothing short of disheartening, he continually rebuffed her every advance and she almost gave up on her attempts when Bryce had delivered into her lap the perfect way to force him into a relationship. Sure it wasn't a perfect solution, but she had a way to get him into a fake relationship, and from there she could maybe begin to get him to consent to a real relationship, and, in time, he had accepted her as his real girlfriend. She had attempted to show him that she could be someone who he could trust. Eventually he had agreed to the relationship and after that she had been quite pleased with the results. After the rocky start everything on a personal front had seemed to move along swimmingly. Sarah only hoped that he was falling for her just as she was falling for him.

"Come on, we're going to have to go and shower and get changed," Chuck eventually said, although his words were not accompanied by any kind of action or motion on his part. He seemed perfectly consigned to staying there with Sarah smiling contentedly on his chest.

"Yeah I suppose we do, but can't we wait just a bit longer? I doubt anything bad will happen if we just happen to sleep in for a few extra hours. You have been working yourself too hard lately. I don't know how you do it, just sit there staring at data for hours on end, even when you're not using the Intersect! You just sit there and pour over it looking for something, some sort of connection."

"I'm not an agent Sarah, I was always the tech guy, and I grew to like the intel too."

Sarah slid up his chest and placed a smoldering kiss on his lips. When they broke apart, her with mischievous light dancing in her eyes, and him with desire, she smiled at him again. "You know after this assignment you are going to become a very highly prized person in the intelligence community. You'll build the gadgets, look at the intel, and go on the missions. James Bond doesn't even do all that," She finished before sliding off his chest and sauntering into the bathroom, naked. "Coming?" She asked with a wink before disappearing.

He scrambled after her.

* * *

**Paris, France.**

**July 9****th****, 2009. 0645**

"Ok where's the stuff you need me to look over today?" Chuck asked as he emerged freshly showered, shaved, and satisfied. Sarah emerged behind him wearing a rather large grin.

"Nothing today Chuck. Our bosses have decided that Hayes has gone to ground, probably doesn't even exist anymore. So they've decided that while we wait for something else to surface we should start to train you." The self-satisfied smirk on Sarah's face dropped faster than rock. They'd talked about it a few weeks back, but after hearing nothing more of it she had assumed that they had dropped the idea.

"Agents Casey and Walker also have a short assignment; they're to meet and bring in some sort of Fulcrum expert named Shaw. Don't know much about him, but he contacted Langley and told them he had some key information they might be interested in. Use whatever means necessary to get that information," Clark concluded.

Casey shot Sarah a smile that seemed to have so much unmitigated glee it bordered on the malicious, "Hear that Walker? Any means necessary," Casey said before inserting the clip into his pistol and chambering a round.

"What exactly is our job?" Sarah asked Clark.

"Meet with Shaw, determine if he's legitimate or not. If he is then get him to tell us everything he knows about Fulcrum. No limitations on this one, get it done."

Sarah looked mortified. "How long are we going to be away?"

"Not long at all—he's in London. Pop up there for the meeting and get him to come back here." That caused Sarah to breathe a small sigh of relief.

"So I'll be back by the end of the day?"

"Yes," Clark said exasperatedly. He was getting tired of her antics in regards to Chuck. She was an agent for Christ's sake and needed to damn well start acting like it. "You have thirty minutes to get to the airport, so I suggest you get ready soon."

Sarah nodded and turned back to the bedroom, the look of dread still permanently fixed on her face. Chuck turned to follow her back into the bedroom when Clark's hand appeared on his shoulder, "Come on we're going to start your training."

"What right now? Can't it wait a few minutes?"

"Now Chuck," Clark warned.

With a nervous look towards the bedroom he tore himself away and followed Clark out the front door.

On the other side of the door Sarah sat on the bed waiting for Chuck. She sat waiting for several minutes while the door remained shut, eventually she gave up on hoping that her boyfriend would return and comfort her. She moved to her closet and began to select her outfit for the coming operation. As she went through her clothes she looked disgustedly upon the one's that she would be forced to wear. Seduction operations were not one's that she enjoyed.

She'd nearly quit when she had first been assigned to one, her parents, especially her father, had not raised her to be a common street whore. She looked disgustedly at the clothes she was going to have to wear. She made no move towards actually putting them on. She collapsed back onto the bed, unwilling or unable to actually put the clothes on.

A few moments passed before Casey started banging on the door, "Let's go Walker!" He said irritably. Sarah quickly moved to dress in the offending garments and quickly emerged in the short, red dress, her "hooker boots", and bright red lipstick. As she emerged from her bedroom she caught Casey's eye. "I wonder what your boy-toy would say about you wearing something like that on a mission."

Sarah glared at him. "You told me we were to use any means necessary," she deadpanned.

Casey gave a light-hearted grunt and cracked what appeared to be the microscopic hints of a smile. "Yeah meaning we are Fifth Freedom authorized, not that your free to whore yourself out on the nearest street corner."

Sarah was back inside her bedroom before Casey had a chance to finish his sentence, and wasted no time in stripping off the vile garments and replacing them with her standard mission attire. She emerged several minutes later in her usual mission black with a smile on her face and a spring in her step.

As she emerged, now wearing standard mission black, she saw Casey loading bullets into one of his magazines and muttering something under his breath as soon as he saw her happy smile.

"What's your problem?" She snapped.

Casey shook his head, and tucked his gun into the back waistband of his pants. "You're unprofessional, emotional, compromised, ineffective, and why you haven't been reassigned yet is beyond me."

Sarah stared at the normally silent man without a word. She had no idea what to say to him.

"Just because you went gaga for nerd boy doesn't mean you don't have to act like an agent anymore. Now we're going to pick up this guy, get the information out of him, and come home. It shouldn't be very difficult so let's see if you can manage to screw up the extraction of a willing asset."

Sarah nodded, her jaw set, eyes angry, and lips a thin line of malice standing out against an otherwise serene, albeit faked serenity, expression. Sarah knew that Casey wouldn't respond well to backtalk, more than likely his response would be a short and violent one, but she knew that he was old school, and that if she showed her capabilities in the coming mission he would back off.

"Let's go Barbie," Casey said grabbing his coat and throwing open the door. Sarah followed silently after him.

**

* * *

****Paris, France.**

**July 9****th****, 2009. 0730.**

The car stopped in front of a non-descript building in the middle of a Parisian street. "We're here," Clark said turning around from the front seat. "Ding will take you in; I'll join you after my meeting with the local station chief."

Chuck opened the door and went to follow Ding, who was a few steps in front of him, into the facility. After catching up with the senior agent he attempted to start a conversation, "Does Mr. Clark normally have to go to so many meetings, briefings, and administrative stuff?"

"Well he does it so that the rest of us don't, with the exception of a mission report we don't really have to do much, although I do take some of the meetings for him."

"Yeah, but I never thought being a field agent involved so much boring work."

Ding shrugged, "Well since we're in friendly countries, and have such a high-value asset with us we want the local office to know about us, not too much mind you, but enough that if you get caught we've got backup."

"Okay, so what are we doing here?"

"We're going to design a training program for you."

"Which is going to be what?"

Ding paused at the entrance to the building, and pulled open the door. "Well the doctors are going to do a bunch of tests, give the results over to myself and Mr. Clark and then we're going to develop a fitness, self-defense, and weapons training course that should leave you capable of defending yourself."

"Uh _weapons training?_ I'm not killing anyone." Chuck said defiantly, stopping midway through the doorway.

"Don't worry, I was talking less than lethal." Ding paused for a moment to check if they were being followed before closing the door behind them and pushing Chuck inside. "Your distaste for killing is well documented in your file."

"Oh, what else is in my file?"

"Flash on it." Ding said, but before Chuck could, he amended his statement, while roughly pushing the analyst into the reception desk, "Later, when we get back to base." He turned to the pretty raven-haired receptionist, "Appointment with Doctor Beckett."

The receptionist looked down, and frowned. "Who for?"

"An unusual man," Ding answered.

The receptionist nodded and handed him two badges. "Third floor," she said before sitting back down to her computer.

Chuck followed Ding with a friendly wave to the icy receptionist. "So who's this doctor Beckett?"

"Someone we trust," Ding said with a tight smile. "We've dealt with him before, and you can trust him."

_Ten minutes later_

"NOOOOOOO! GET AWAY!" Chuck said running towards the door and desperately attempting to pull it open.

"Mr. Bartowski please relax, I just need to draw a wee bit of blood."

Chuck managed to wretch open the door only to find the imposing figure of John Clark on the other side. Chuck stopped dead in his tracks inches away from impact the man's coffee, and the punishment for that was not something Chuck ever wanted to discover. He turned around unhappily, "There's no way to do this without a needle?"

The doctor shook his head, "Sorry."

Chuck slowly retreated back towards the exam table and reluctantly allowed them to proceed with the examination.

Eventually he found himself heading towards an MRI machine, "Is all this really necessary? I mean why did you need to do blood work? Or an MRI?"

Beckett looked at him, "We are dealing with a new technology and we've no idea what effect it will have upon the human body, so yes these tests are necessary if we are to make sure that you are still in good health."

**

* * *

**

London, England.

**July 9****th****, 2009. 1300.**

Sarah glanced over at her partner, "That's him, which one of us will be making first contact?"

"Go ahead Walker, and don't worry if he threatens you I'll cover you." Sarah plastered a fake smile on her face, "Thanks."

Casey rolled his eyes as the blonde agent headed across the street.

Once Sarah was across the street she quickly ducked under the cover of a store's overhanging roof to protect herself from the rain. She cast Casey one last look, before switching her attention solely to her objective. Without moving from her spot she scanned the entire street for threats. She didn't see anyone who appeared to be an immediate threat, certainly no one was armed, but she knew full well that a gun was not necessary to hurt or kill someone. A quick glance towards the mark told her that he was certainly not going to be able to defend himself if necessary. While he wasn't a weakling, the glasses, nervous handwringing, jerky frightful glances around the street, and the guy's entire attitude told Sarah that he was an amateur.

Sarah slowly made her way down the street, stopping to window shop in order to blend into the throng of other pedestrians. Eventually she approached the nerdy asset and initiated the code-word phrases that she had been instructed to use. "You don't happen to know a good jewelry store do you? I need my engagement ring resized; my fiancé and I just recently moved here, so we don't really know anything around here."

"Uh, yes, uh there should be one around…" He said fumbling around with his phone for a moment, "yes there's one a few blocks down, but I'd be careful they uh, they aren't the nicest of people," Shaw said completing his end of the code phrases.

Sarah gave him a quick smile, "Oh well perhaps you could help us? You know show us the secret handshakes and all that."

"Uh yes that could work. Yes…yes shall we find someplace more quiet to talk though?" He said once again nervously glancing around the street.

Sarah nodded and signaled Casey to join them.

"So Mr. Shaw how do you know Fulcrum?"

"You want to know about Fulcrum?" He asked furrowing his brow in puzzlement.

"Yes, why who did you think we wanted to know about?"

Shaw paused for a moment considering his answer, he was under orders to tell them certain information about his employers, but it appeared the CIA was even more in the dark then they had dreamed of. "The Ring."

**

* * *

**

Paris, France.

**July 9****th****, 2009. 1320.**

"Ok Chuck we're going to start you off easy, just some running, and weight lifting and nothing even to strenuous for the first day. After that we'll gradually increase the training until you are capable of surviving without our constant supervision."

"What happens then?"

"Well we can decrease your security detail a bit, but you'll probably have two to three agents assigned to you for the entire time you have the Intersect."

"What about Sarah?"

"Relax we won't be separating you two unless it begins to negatively impact her job performance, which to be perfectly honest it might. She's doing some very unprofessional things in order to try and make the relationship between you two work and if she keeps that up, like trying to refuse assignments in order to go out on a date with you then she might have to be reassigned, or transferred to a desk job." Chuck nodded.

"Am I going to have to kill people?" He asked solemnly. He didn't want to have to think about how that would change the relationship between him and Sarah.

"No. We already went over this we aren't going to teach you how to kill someone really. And to be perfectly honest with you Chuck, I think having the Intersect in your head means that you really want have to face that risk."

"Why?" Chuck had thought that considering the amount of people surrounding him who had to, and did kill they would be chomping at the bit to have an Intersect that could go on the offensive.

"Well the Intersect version you have in your head gives you a massive intelligence advantage, but since you aren't a trained field agent you can't do much with it; if you were trained then you'd be a very big threat to every government on the planet."

"So then how were you having planning on putting this in someone's head?"

"Only small parts of it, when we had planned to upload the Intersect we were hoping to give agents just the relevant parts to their field assignment and then override, or remove those Intersect files when the mission was over."

Chuck nodded. He could accept that kind of training, specifically the kind that involved not teaching how to kill someone else. He hoped Sarah could as well.

**

* * *

**

En Route from London to Paris.

**July 9****th****, 2009. 1348.**

The pair of agents finally relaxed a bit as soon as their plane left the ground.

"Ok, now we're secure so what is the Ring?" Sarah asked.

"You really don't know?" Shaw, god he hated that name, asked still unsure about how solid his cover was. Seeing the scowls on his two "protectors" Shaw decided to answer the question. "The Ring are behind the Brussels assassinations, arms sales in Bosnia, North Korea, the Sudan, numerous security breaches, and they're building their own Intersect. You do know what an Intersect is right?" the mole struggled to keep his disdain for the CIA out of question.

"Sorry, never heard of an Intersect." Sarah said quickly.

"You CIA pukes really don't know anything do you?"

"Well why don't you enlighten us asshole?" Casey barked.

"Why don't we wait until we meet the rest of your team, I hate repeating myself."

_

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_

A/N I hadn't actually planned to release this chapter until next Monday (week after Chuck ends) but I figured that you guys were waiting long enough and decided to post it earlier.

I 3 Reviews so please feel free to leave one.


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